|
Billy Daniels (boxer)
William Boone Daniels (September 12, 1915 – October 7, 1988) was an American singer active in the United States and Europe from the mid-1930s to 1988, notable for his hit recording of " That Old Black Magic" and his pioneering performances on early 1950s television. He was one of the first African-American entertainers to cross over into the mainstream. Daniels was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1977. Life and career Early life Daniels was born in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. where his father was a postmaster and notary. His mother was a schoolteacher and organist. Daniels had a heritage of Portuguese sailor, Native American (Choctaw), African American, and frontiersman Daniel Boone. Early career In 1935, Daniels moved from Jacksonville to New York to attend Columbia University. He planned to become a lawyer, but he was sidetracked during the Depression. His grandmother was a seamstress in Harlem for the '' Ziegfeld Follies'', and she en ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which the city government consolidated in 1968. Consolidation gave Jacksonville its great size and placed most of its metropolitan population within the city limits. As of 2020, Jacksonville's population is 949,611, making it the 12th most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in the Southeast, and the most populous city in the South outside of the state of Texas. With a population of 1,733,937, the Jacksonville metropolitan area ranks as Florida's fourth-largest metropolitan region. Jacksonville straddles the St. Johns River in the First Coast region of northeastern Florida, about south of the Georgia state line ( to the urban core/downtown) and north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued for the remainder of his life. He found great popular success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. His trio was the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. Cole also acted in films and on television and performed on Broadway. He was the first African-American man to host an American television series. He was the father of singer Natalie Cole (1950–2015). Biography Early life Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on March 17, 1919. He had three brothers: Eddie (1910–1970), Ike (1927–2001), and Freddy (1931–2020), and a half-sister, Joyce Coles. Each of the Coles brothers pursued careers in music. When Nat King Cole was four years old, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When You're Smiling (film)
''When You're Smiling'' is a 1950 American musical film directed by Joseph Santley and starring Jerome Courtland, Frankie Laine and Lola Albright.Stephens p.203 Plot Cast * Jerome Courtland as Gerald Durham * Frankie Laine as Frankie Laine * Billy Daniels as Billy Daniels * Lola Albright as Peggy Martin * Jerome Cowan as Herbert Reynolds * Margo Woode as Linda Reynolds * Collette Lyons as Nan Doran * Robert Shayne as Jack Lacey * Don Otis as Don Otis * Ray Teal as Steve * Jimmy Lloyd as Dave * Donna Hamilton as Margie * Edward Earle as Foster * Frank Nelson as Jeweler * Neyle Morrow Francis Neyle Marx Jr. (October 28, 1914 – September 30, 2006) was an American film and television actor. Morrow was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He began his screen career in 1940, appearing in the film '' Drums of the Desert''. In the sa ... as Carlo References Bibliography * Michael L. Stephens. ''Art Directors in Cinema: A Worldwide Biographical Dictionary''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the Swing music, swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (July 6, 1911 – May 8, 1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (January 3, 1916 – October 21, 1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia "Patty" Marie Andrews (February 16, 1918 – January 30, 2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, "Bei Mir Bistu Shein, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), "Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and "Rum and Coca Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso music, calypso. The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bubbling Brown Sugar
''Bubbling Brown Sugar'' is a musical revue written by Loften Mitchell based on a concept by Rosetta LeNoire and featuring the music of numerous African-American artists who were popular during the Harlem Renaissance, 1920–1940, including Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Count Basie, Cab Calloway and Fats Waller. Original music, including the title theme song "Bubbling Brown Sugar," was composed by pianist Emme Kemp, a protégé of the legendary Eubie Blake. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Robert M. Cooper directed and produced the Broadway and tour productions. The show was set in a Harlem nightclub of the 1920s-1940s. It originally played at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, opening February 15, 1975, and running for 12 performances. It opened on Broadway at the ANTA Playhouse on March 2, 1976, and closed on December 31, 1977, after 766 performances. Synopsis ''Based on a reading of the original b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hello, Dolly! (musical)
''Hello, Dolly!'' is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce ''The Merchant of Yonkers'', which Wilder revised and retitled ''The Matchmaker'' in 1955. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. ''Hello, Dolly!'' debuted at the Fisher Theater in Detroit on November 18, 1963, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick, and moved to Broadway in 1964, winning 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. These awards set a record which the play held for 37 years. The show album ''Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast Recording'' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. The album reached number one on the Billboard album chart on June 6, 1964, and was replaced the next week by Louis Armstrong's album ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress, singer and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in '' St. Louis Woman'' in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of '' Hello, Dolly!'' in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special ''Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale''. Her rendition of " Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. In 1976, she became the first African-American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Early life Bailey was born in Newport News, Virginia to the Reverend Joseph James and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey. She was raised in the Bloodfields neighborhood of Newport News and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School in nearby Norfolk, the first city in the region to offer higher education ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography Biography.com. Retrieved June 6, 2013.< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis Bound
''Memphis Bound'' (usually styled ''Memphis Bound!'') is a 1945 American Musical theater, musical based on the Gilbert and Sullivan opera ''H.M.S. Pinafore''. The score was adapted and augmented by Don Walker (orchestrator), Don Walker and Clay Warnick, with a libretto credited to Albert Barker and Sally Benson, "with gratitude to W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan." The original production starred an all-black cast including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Avon Long, Billy Daniels, Ada Brown (singer), Ada Brown, and Sheila Guyse. Plot An all-African-American touring company is traveling to Memphis on a showboat, the ''Calliboga Queen''. When the boat is run aground in Tennessee, the company mounts a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' to raise funds to get it unstuck. Much of the musical consists of a play within a play, as the company presents a musically updated version of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera; the boat pilot (played by Bill Robinson in the original ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Records (1944)
Apollo Records was a record company and label founded in New York City by Hy Siegel and Ted Gottlieb in 1944. A year later it was sold to Ike and Bess Berman. Apollo was known for blues (Doc Pomus), doo-wop (The Larks), gospel (Mahalia Jackson), jazz, and rock and roll. Early years In the early 1940s, the Bermans and Siegel worked at the Rainbow Record Shop on 125th Street in Harlem. They named the label after the nearby Apollo Theater. Siegel served as Apollo's first president. Initially Apollo employed three product lines that included a 300 series, featuring rhythm and blues and jazz artists, and a 100 series which was a variety of genres: gospel, calypso, Country music and Jewish comedy. By issue #188, the 100 series shifted exclusively towards gospel. The third line, starting at #750, was dubbed "Jazz Masterworks". Apollo recorded rhythm and blues singers Dinah Washington and Wynonie Harris before they became famous on other labels. Dean Martin recorded briefly for the la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music, and was a popular singer who recorded his own songs as well as songs written by others from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including " Moon River", " Days of Wine and Roses", " Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway shows. He received nineteen Oscar nominations, and won four Best Original Song Oscars. Early life Mercer was born in Savannah, Georgia, where one of his first jobs, aged 10, was sweeping floors at the original 1919 location of Leopold's Ice Cream. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck; February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film '' The Wizard of Oz'' (lyrics by Yip Harburg), including " Over the Rainbow", Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. "Over the Rainbow" was voted the 20th century's No. 1 song by the RIAA and the NEA. Life and career Arlen was born in Buffalo, New York, the child of a Jewish cantor. His twin brother died the next day. He learned to play the piano as a youth, and formed a band as a young man. He achieved some local success as a pianist and singer before moving to New York City in his early twenties, where he worked as an accompanist in vaudeville and changed his name to Harold Arlen. Between 1926 and about 1934, Arlen appeared occasionally as a band vocalist on records by The Buffalodians, Red Nichols, Joe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
