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Blood Brothers (1995 Album)
''Blood Brothers: The International Recording'' is a 1995 studio cast recording of the Willy Russell musical '' Blood Brothers''. The album features David Cassidy, Shaun Cassidy, and Petula Clark, with Russell himself as the Narrator. Background The album was the third release of a ''Blood Brothers'' cast recording; the earlier versions featured the original 1983 cast (including Barbara Dickson as Mrs Johnstone) and 1988 cast (with Kiki Dee as Mrs Johnstone). In 1995, a recording of the then London cast, including Stephanie Lawrence as Mrs Johnstone and Warwick Evans as the Narrator was also produced. Many of the instrumental tracks appeared on both the International and London recordings. Cast biographies ''Blood Brothers'' marked the first time Shaun Cassidy and David Cassidy appeared together on an album, having both previously had successful careers as pop artists. (The next would be only a year later when they sang in a trio with brother Patrick on "You Could Drive A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy (April 12, 1950 – November 21, 2017) was an American actor, singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was best known for his role as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his stepmother, Shirley Jones), in the 1970s musical-sitcom ''The Partridge Family''. This role catapulted Cassidy to teen idol status as a superstar pop singer of the 1970s. Early life Cassidy was born at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York City, the son of singer and actor Jack Cassidy and actress Evelyn Ward. His father was of half Irish and half German ancestry, and his mother was descended mostly from Colonial Americans, along with having some Irish and Swiss roots. His mother's ancestors were among the founders of Newark, New Jersey. As his parents were frequently touring on the road, he spent his early years being raised by his maternal grandparents in a middle-class neighborhood in West Orange, New Jersey. In 1956, he found out from neighbors' children that hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaun Cassidy
Shaun Paul Cassidy (born September 27, 1958) is an American singer, actor, writer, and producer. He has created and/or produced a number of television series including '' American Gothic'', '' Roar'' and ''Invasion''. Cassidy currently serves as executive producer and writer for NBC's medical drama ''New Amsterdam''. While in high school, Cassidy signed a contract with Warner Bros. Records, leading to his albums ''Shaun Cassidy'', ''Born Late'', '' Under Wraps'', ''Room Service'', and ''Wasp''. Almost concurrently, Cassidy starred in the ABC television series ''The Hardy Boys Mysteries'', as well as ''Breaking Away'' and had a stint on the daytime soap ''General Hospital''. While appearing on Broadway in the hit musical drama '' Blood Brothers'', he wrote his first television pilot, ''American Gothic''. In 2020, Cassidy returned to the stage with his one-man show ''The Magic of a Midnight Sky''. Cassidy is the eldest son of Academy Award–winning actress Shirley Jones and Tony ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Petula Clark
Petula Sally Olwen Clark, CBE (born 15 November 1932) is an English singer, actress, and composer. She has one of the longest serving careers of a British singer, spanning more than seven decades. Clark's professional career began during the Second World War as a child entertainer on BBC Radio. In 1954 she charted with "The Little Shoemaker", the first of her big UK hits, and within two years she began recording in French. Her international successes have included " ''Prends mon coeur''", "Sailor" (a UK number one), "Romeo", and " Chariot". Hits in German, Italian and Spanish followed. In late 1964 Clark's success extended to the United States with a four-year run of career-defining, often upbeat singles, many written or co-written by Tony Hatch and Jackie Trent. These songs include her signature song " Downtown", "I Know a Place", " My Love", " A Sign of the Times", " I Couldn't Live Without Your Love", "Who Am I", " Colour My World", " This Is My Song" (by Charles Chaplin), ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Showtunes
A show tune is a song originally written as part of the score of a work of musical theatre or musical film, especially if the piece in question has become a standard, more or less detached in most people's minds from the original context. Though show tunes vary in style, they do tend to share common characteristics—they usually fit the context of a story being told in the original musical, they are useful in enhancing and heightening choice moments. A particularly common form of show tune is the "I Want" song, which composer Stephen Schwartz noted as being particularly likely to have a lifespan outside the show that spawned it. Show tunes were a major venue for popular music before the rock and roll and television era; most of the hits of such songwriters as Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and George Gershwin came from their shows. (Even into the television and rock era, a few stage musicals managed to turn their show tunes into major pop music hits, sometimes aided by fil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relativity Records
Relativity Records was an American record label founded by Barry Kobrin at the site of his company, Important Record Distributors (IRD) in metro New York. Relativity released music that covers a wide variety of musical genres. When it entered into a deal with Sony Music Entertainment, it became more known for its heavy metal and hip hop releases. History Although it was reportedly established in 1985, there is evidence that the Relativity Records imprint began as an in-house IRD label. In the 1980s, Relativity Records was mostly focused on rock music, including heavy metal and punk rock. Releases in this genre were split among Relativity and its sister labels Combat and In-Effect Records. Following the recession of 1990, these labels were folded back into the main Relativity label. Also in that year, Sony Music acquired a 50% stake in the company. Around 1992, the label underwent restructuring. IRD was renamed Relativity Entertainment Distribution. In 1995, Relativity ente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Willy Russell
William Russell (born 23 August 1946) is an English dramatist, lyricist and composer. His best known works are ''Educating Rita'', ''Shirley Valentine'', '' Blood Brothers'' and ''Our Day Out''. Early life Russell was born in Whiston, Lancashire (which is now Merseyside). On leaving school, aged 15, he became a ladies' hairdresser, eventually running his own salon, until the age of 20 when he decided to go back to college. This led to him qualifying as a teacher. During these years, Russell also worked as a semi-professional singer, writing and performing his own songs in folk clubs. At college, he began writing drama and, in 1972, took a programme of two one-act plays to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where they were seen by writer John McGrath, who recommended Russell to the Liverpool Everyman, which commissioned the adaptation, ''When The Reds…'', Russell's first professional work for theatre. Career Russell's first play was ''Keep Your Eyes Down'' (1971), written while ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blood Brothers (musical)
''Blood Brothers'' is a musical with book, lyrics, and music by Willy Russell. The story is a contemporary nature versus nurture plot, revolving around fraternal twins Mickey and Eddie, who were separated at birth, one subsequently being raised in a wealthy family, the other in a poor family. The different environments take the twins to opposite ends of the social spectrum, one becoming a councillor, and the other unemployed and in prison. They both fall in love with the same girl, causing a rift in their friendship and leading to the tragic death of both brothers. Russell says that his work was based on a one-act play that he read as a child "about two babies switched at birth ... it became the seed for Blood Brothers." Originally developed as a school play, ''Blood Brothers'' debuted in Liverpool before Russell transferred it to the West End for a short run in 1983. The musical won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical and went on to a year-long national tour before r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Dickson
Barbara Ruth Dickson (born 27 September 1947) is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include 'I Know Him So Well', 'Answer Me' and 'January February'. Dickson has placed fifteen albums on the UK Albums Chart from 1977 to date, and had a number of hit singles, including four which reached the top 20 on the UK Singles Chart. ''The Scotsman'' newspaper has described her as Scotland's best-selling female singer in terms of the numbers of hit chart singles and albums she has achieved in the UK since 1976. She is also a twice Olivier Award-winning actress, with roles including Viv Nicholson in the musical ''Spend Spend Spend'', and was the original Mrs. Johnstone in Willy Russell's long-running musical '' Blood Brothers''. On television she starred as Anita Braithwaite in '' Band of Gold''. Career Early years Dickson was born in Dunfermline and went to Woodmill High School and Dunfermline High School. Previously she lived in "Dollytown", Rosyth, a prefab housing estate that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kiki Dee
Pauline Matthews (born 6 March 1947), better known by her stage name Kiki Dee, is an English singer. Known for her blue-eyed soul vocals, she was the first female singer from the UK to sign with Motown's Tamla Records. Dee is best known for her 1973 hit "Amoureuse", her 1974 hit "I've Got the Music in Me" and "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", her 1976 duet with Elton John, which went to number 1 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart. Her 1981 single "Star" became the theme song for the talent show '' Opportunity Knocks'' when it was revived by the BBC in 1987. In 1993, she performed another duet with John for his ''Duets'' album, a cover version of Cole Porter's " True Love", which reached number 2 in the UK. During her career, she has released 40 singles, three EPs and 12 albums. Early life Dee was born in Bradford, West Riding of Yorkshire, England. At the age of 10 she won a local talent contest, and at 16 she had her first paid job in show busin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wasp (album)
''Wasp'', released by teen idol Shaun Cassidy in 1980, was his fifth and final studio album. In an attempt to salvage a sinking pop career, Cassidy recruited Todd Rundgren to help "reinvent" his music career. Members of Rundgren's group Utopia also played on the record, and the work had a decidedly "new wave" feel. The majority of tracks featured on ''Wasp'' were cover songs. The album featured a version of David Bowie's song, "Rebel Rebel," in which Cassidy included a passage from The Crystals' "He's a Rebel." Other covers included The Who's "So Sad About Us," Ian Hunter's "Once Bitten, Twice Shy," the Talking Heads' "The Book I Read," The Animals' 1965 hit " It's My Life," and The Four Tops' 1966 hit " Shake Me, Wake Me." All of the other songs were written by Rundgren and various members of his band. Unlike his previous four albums where he wrote at least one song, Cassidy was given a co-writing credit on "Cool Fire." The reinvention of teenybopper Cassidy as an edgy new w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EFX (show)
''EFX'' was a Las Vegas Strip production show residing at the MGM Grand Las Vegas, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino which opened on March 23, 1995 and closed on December 31, 2002. When it premiered, it was the most expensive and largest-scaled theater installation in the world. A significant entertainment landmark of the strip for nearly eight years, it was known for changing its headline star every two years. Performers in the lead role were Michael Crawford, David Cassidy, Tommy Tune, and Rick Springfield. Michael Crawford version, 1995 Plot The original production of ''EFX'' featured a loose plot involving the celebration of the human mind. The EFX Master, in charge of EFX, a world where "anything is possible" thanks to imagination, invites the audience to relive their childhood innocence and wonder by taking them on a journey through four different stories: those of Merlin and King Arthur, a futuristic P.T. Barnum and his alien circus, the last days of Harry Houdini, and H.G. Wells' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sunset Boulevard (musical)
''Sunset Boulevard'' is a musical with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics and book by Don Black and Christopher Hampton. It is based on the 1950 film of the same title. The plot revolves around Norma Desmond, a faded star of the silent screen era, living in the past in her decaying mansion on the fabled Los Angeles street. When young screenwriter Joe Gillis accidentally crosses her path, she sees in him an opportunity to make her return to the big screen, with romance and tragedy to follow. Opening first in London in 1993, the musical has had several long runs internationally and enjoyed extensive tours. However, it has been the subject of several legal battles and ultimately lost money due to its extraordinary running costs. Background From approximately 1952 to 1956, Gloria Swanson worked with actor Richard Stapley (aka Richard Wyler) and cabaret singer and pianist Dickson Hughes on a musical adaptation originally entitled ''Starring Norma Desmond'', then ''Boulevar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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