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Brownie McGhee
Walter Brown "Brownie" McGhee (November 30, 1915 – February 16, 1996) was an American folk music and Piedmont blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaboration with the harmonica player Sonny Terry. Life and career McGhee was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, and grew up in Kingsport, Tennessee. At about the age of four he contracted polio, which incapacitated his right leg. His brother Granville "Sticks"(or "Stick") McGhee, who also later became a musician and composed the famous song "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-o-Dee," was nicknamed for pushing young Brownie around in a cart. Their father, George McGhee, was a factory worker, known around University Avenue for playing guitar and singing. Brownie's uncle made him a guitar from a tin marshmallow box and a piece of board. McGhee spent much of his youth immersed in music, singing with a local harmony group, the Golden Voices Gospel Quartet, and teaching himself to play guitar. He also played the five-string banjo and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County, Tennessee, Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Divisions of Tennessee, Grand Division and the state's third largest city after Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis.U.S. Census Bureau2010 Census Interactive Population Search. Retrieved: December 20, 2011. Knoxville is the principal city of the Knoxville Metropolitan Area, Knoxville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 869,046 in 2019. First settled in 1786, Knoxville was the first capital of Tennessee. The city struggled with geographic isolation throughout the early 19th century. The History of rail transportation in the United States#Early period (1826–1860), arrival of the railroad in 1855 led to an economic boom. The city was bitterly Tennessee in the American Civil War#Tenne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Graphophone#Commercialization, American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Laboratory and Bureau#Commercialization of phonograph patents, Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records International, CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie And ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Jerk
''The Jerk'' is a 1979 American comedy film directed by Carl Reiner and written by Steve Martin, Carl Gottlieb, and Michael Elias (from a story by Steve Martin and Carl Gottlieb). This was Martin's first starring role in a feature film. The film also features Bernadette Peters, M. Emmet Walsh, and Jackie Mason. Plot Navin R. Johnson is the white adopted son of black sharecroppers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his obvious adoption. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color but because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adoptive family plays spirited blues music. One night, he hears a champagne-style rendition of "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and spontaneously begins to dance; he excitedly sees this as a calling and decides to leave for St. Louis, from which the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire. He wakes up the other hotel guests ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Martin
Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominated for two Tony Awards for his musical '' Bright Star'' in 2016. Among many honors, he has received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, the Kennedy Center Honors, and an AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Martin at sixth place in a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comics. ''The Guardian'' named him one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. Martin came to public notice in the 1960s as a writer for ''The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour'', for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1969, and later as a frequent host on ''Saturday Night Live''. In the 1970s, Martin performed his offbeat, absurdist comedy routines before sold-out theaters on national tours. Since the 1980s, having ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof
''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. An adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", the play was written by him between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the "Cat", Brick's wife. ''Cat on a Hot Tin Roof'' features motifs such as social mores, greed, superficiality, mendacity, decay, sexual desire, repression and death. Dialogue throughout is often written using nonstandard spelling intended to represent accents of the Southern United States. The original production starred Barbara Bel Geddes, Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara. The play was adapted as a motion picture of the same name in 1958, starring Elizabeth Ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finian's Rainbow
''Finian's Rainbow'' is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Burton Lane, produced by Lee Sabinson. The original 1947 Broadway production ran for 725 performances, while a film version was released in 1968 and several revivals have followed. An elderly Irishman, Finian McLonergan, moves to the southern United States with his daughter Sharon, to bury a stolen pot of gold near Fort Knox, in the mistaken belief that it will grow. Og, a leprechaun, follows them, desperate to recover his treasure before the loss of it turns him permanently human. Complications arise when a bigoted and corrupt U.S. senator gets involved, and when wishes are made inadvertently over the hidden crock. The Irish-tinged music score includes gospel and R&B influences. Synopsis Act I The play opens in Rainbow Valley, Missitucky (a fictitious blend of Mississippi and Kentucky), near Fort Knox, home of a mixture of Black and White tobacco sharecroppers. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Broadway Theater
Broadway theatre,Although ''theater'' is generally the spelling for this common noun in the United States (see American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, American and British English spelling differences), 130 of the List of Broadway theaters, 144 extant and extinct Broadway venues use (used) the spelling ''Theatre'' as the proper noun in their names (12 others used neither), with many performers and trade groups for live dramatic presentations also using the spelling ''theatre''. or Broadway, are the Theatre, theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional Theater (structure), theatres, each with 500 or more seats, located in the Theater District, Manhattan, Theater District and the Lincoln Center along Broadway (Manhattan), Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Broadway and London's West End theatre, West End together represent the highest commercial level of live theater in the English-speaking world. While the thoroughfare is eponymous wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Chief Ellis
Wilbert Thirkield "Big Chief" Ellis (November 10, 1914 – December 20, 1977) was an American blues pianist and vocalist. Biography Ellis was born in Birmingham, Alabama, United States, and was an autodidact at piano. He played at local parties and dances in the late 1920s before leaving Alabama, traveling the United States and working odd jobs. He served in the Army from 1939 to 1942, then moved to New York City, where he accompanied touring blues performers for their concerts in the city. He recorded with Lenox Records in 1945, and recorded for Capitol Records with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee in the 1950s. In 1972, Ellis moved to Washington, D.C., where he operated a liquor store. Towards the end of his life, Ellis began recording for Trix Records, where he played again with McGhee as well as Tarheel Slim and John Cephas. Ellis died in Birmingham, Alabama, of heart failure aged 63. References External links * Big Chief Ellis biographyat AllMusic AllMusic (prev ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Champion Jack Dupree
William Thomas "Champion Jack" Dupree (July 23, 1909 or July 4, 1910 – January 21, 1992) was an American blues and boogie-woogie pianist and singer. His nickname was derived from his early career as a boxer. Biography Dupree was a New Orleans blues and boogie-woogie pianist, a barrelhouse "professor". His father was from the Belgian Congo and his mother was part African American and Cherokee. His birth date has been given as July 4, July 10, and July 23, 1908, 1909,Dahl, Bill"Champion Jack Dupree: Biography" AllMusic, Retrieved 30 September 2016. or 1910; the researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc give July 4, 1910. He was orphaned at the age of eight and sent to the Colored Waifs Home in New Orleans, an institution for orphaned or delinquent boys (about six years previously, Louis Armstrong had also been sent to the Home, after being arrested as a "dangerous and suspicious character"). Dupree taught himself to play the piano there and later apprenticed with Tuts Washington ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jump Blues
Jump blues is an up-tempo style of blues, usually played by small groups and featuring horn instruments. It was popular in the 1940s and was a precursor of rhythm and blues and rock and roll. Appreciation of jump blues was renewed in the 1990s as part of the swing revival. Origins Jump blues evolved from the music of big bands such as those of Lionel Hampton and Lucky Millinder in the early 1940s which produced musicians such as Louis Jordan, Jack McVea, Earl Bostic, and Arnett Cobb. Jordan was the most popular of the jump blues stars; other artists who played the genre include Roy Brown, Amos Milburn, and Joe Liggins, as well as sax soloists Jack McVea, Big Jay McNeely, and Bull Moose Jackson. Hits included singles such as Jordan's "Saturday Night Fish Fry", Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" and Big Jay McNeely's "Deacon's Hop". One important stylistic prototype in the development of R&B was jump blues, pioneered by Louis Jordan, with ... His Tympany Five ... three horns and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guinness Publishing
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. The brainchild of Sir Hugh Beaver, the book was co-founded by twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter in Fleet Street, London, in August 1955. The first edition topped the best-seller list in the United Kingdom by Christmas 1955. The following year the book was launched internationally, and as of the 2022 edition, it is now in its 67th year of publication, published in 100 countries and 23 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in ''Guinness World Records'' becoming the primary international authority ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Larkin (writer)
Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited the ''Guinness Who's Who of Jazz'', the ''Guinness Who's Who of Blues'', and the ''Virgin Encyclopedia Of Heavy Rock''. He has over 650,000 copies in print to date. Background and education Larkin was born in Dagenham, Essex. Larkin spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables, that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music. He studied at the South East Essex County Technical High School and at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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