Doris Troy
Doris Troy (born Doris Elaine Higginsen; January 6, 1937 – February 16, 2004) was an American R&B singer and songwriter, known to her many fans as "Mama Soul". Her biggest hit was " Just One Look", a top 10 hit in 1963. Life and career She was born as Doris Elaine Higginsen, in the Bronx, the daughter of a Barbadian Pentecostal minister. She later took her grandmother's name and grew up as Doris Payne. Her parents disapproved of "subversive" forms of music like rhythm & blues, so she cut her teeth singing in her father's choir. At age 16, she was working as an usherette at the Apollo where she was discovered by James Brown. Under the name Doris Payne, she began songwriting and earned $100 in 1960 for the Dee Clark hit "How About That". Going into the recording industry, Troy worked as a backup vocalist for Atlantic Records alongside Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick. She was also part of the original lineup of The Sweet Inspirations in 1963, with Cissy Houston and the two Warwi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area and is the largest city within the greater Mojave Desert. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city, known primarily for its gambling, shopping, fine dining, entertainment, and nightlife. The Las Vegas Valley as a whole serves as the leading financial, commercial, and cultural center for Nevada. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous for its luxurious and extremely large casino-hotels together with their associated activities. It is a top three destination in the United States for business conventions and a global leader in the hospitality industry, claiming more AAA Five Diamond hotels than any other city in the world. Today, Las Vegas annually ranks as one ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Barbados
Barbados is an island country in the Lesser Antilles of the West Indies, in the Caribbean region of the Americas, and the most easterly of the Caribbean Islands. It occupies an area of and has a population of about 287,000 (2019 estimate). Its capital and largest city is Bridgetown. Inhabited by Island Caribs, Kalinago people since the 13th century, and prior to that by other Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Amerindians, Spanish navigators took possession of Barbados in the late 15th century, claiming it for the Crown of Castile. It first appeared on a Spanish map in 1511. The Portuguese Empire claimed the island between 1532 and 1536, but abandoned it in 1620 with their only remnants being an introduction of wild boars for a good supply of meat whenever the island was visited. An Kingdom of England, English ship, the ''Olive Blossom'', arrived in Barbados on 14 May 1625; its men took possession of the island in the name of James VI and I, King James I. In 1627, the first ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music genre and film scoring. A songwriter who mainly writes the lyrics for a song is referred to as a lyricist. The pressure from the music industry to produce popular hits means that song writing is often an activity for which the tasks are distributed between a number of people. For example, a songwriter who excels at writing lyrics might be paired with a songwriter with the task of creating original melodies. Pop songs may be composed by group members from the band or by staff writers – songwriters directly employed by music publishers. Some songwriters serve as their own music publishers, while others have external publishers. The old-style apprenticeship approach to learning how to write songs is being supplemented by university degrees, c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Drifters
The Drifters are several American doo-wop and R&B/Soul music, soul vocal groups. They were originally formed as a backing group for Clyde McPhatter, formerly the lead tenor of Billy Ward and his Dominoes in 1953. The second group of Drifters, formed in 1959 and led by Ben E. King, were originally an up-and-coming group named The Five Crowns. After 1965 members drifted in and out of both groups and many of these formed other groups of Drifters as well. Several groups of Drifters can trace roots back to these original groups, but contain few if any original members. According to ''Rolling Stone'', the Drifters were the least stable of the great vocal groups, as they were low-paid musicians hired by George Treadwell, who owned the Drifters' name from 1955, after McPhatter left. The Treadwell Drifters line has had 60 musicians, including several splinter groups by former Drifters members (not under Treadwell's management). These groups are usually identified with a possessive credit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solomon Burke
Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke (born James Solomon McDonald, March 21, 1936 or 1940 – October 10, 2010) was an American singer who shaped the sound of rhythm and blues as one of the founding fathers of soul music in the 1960s. He has been called "a key transitional figure bridging R&B and soul", and was known for his "prodigious output". He had a string of hits including "Cry to Me", "If You Need Me", "Got to Get You Off My Mind", " Down in the Valley", and "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love". Burke was referred to honorifically as "King Solomon", the "King of Rock 'n' Soul", "Bishop of Soul", and the "Muhammad Ali of soul". Due to his minimal chart success in comparison to other soul music greats such as James Brown, Wilson Pickett, and Otis Redding, Burke has been described as the genre's "most unfairly overlooked singer" of its golden age. Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler referred to Burke as "the greatest male soul singer of all time". Burke's most famous recor ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Helen Of Troy
Helen of Troy, Helen, Helena, (Ancient Greek: Ἑλένη ''Helénē'', ) also known as beautiful Helen, Helen of Argos, or Helen of Sparta, was a figure in Greek mythology said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world. She was believed to have been the daughter of Zeus and Leda, and was the sister of Clytemnestra, Castor and Pollux, Philonoe, Phoebe and Timandra. She was married to King Menelaus of Sparta "who became by her the father of Hermione, and, according to others, of Nicostratus also." The usual tradition is that after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to Paris in the Judgement of Paris, she was seduced by him and carried off to Troy. This resulted in the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her. Another ancient tradition, told by Stesichorus, tells of how "not she, but her wraith only, had passed to Troy, while she was borne by the Gods to the land of Egypt, and there remained until the day when her lord Menelaus, turning aside on the homewar ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Sweet Inspirations
The Sweet Inspirations were an American R&B girl group mostly known for their work as backup singers on studio recordings for other R&B and rock artists. A founding member of the group was Dionne Warwick, who was later replaced by her aunt, Cissy Houston. History The Sweet Inspirations was founded by former members of The Drinkard Singers, a long-running Gospel singing group whose membership included Cissy Houston (née Drinkard, and mother of Whitney Houston, b. 1963) and Lee Warwick, who was Cissy's sister and the mother of Sweet Inspirations members Dee Dee and Dionne Warwick). As a backup group, the Sweet Inspirations was in high demand among producers, publishers, artists, and songwriters in the early 1960s. The original lineup included Doris Troy and the two Warwick sisters Dionne & Dee Dee. Both Troy and Dionne Warwick enjoyed solo careers with hits in 1963, " Just One Look" and " Don't Make Me Over" respectively, on which the Sweet Inspirations can be heard. At that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dionne Warwick
Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboard'''s Hot 100 pop singles chart. She is the second-most charted female vocalist during the rock era (1955–1999). She is also one of the most-charted vocalists of all time, with 56 of her singles making the Hot 100 between 1962 and 1998 (12 of them Top Ten), and 80 singles in total – either solo or collaboratively – making the Hot 100, R&B and/or adult contemporary charts. Dionne ranks #74 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100's "Greatest Artists of all time". During her career, she has sold more than 100 million records worldwide and she has won many awards, including six Grammy Awards. Warwick has been inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, the R&B Music Hall of Fame and the Apollo Theater Walk of Fame. In 2019 she won the Grammy Lifetim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dee Clark
Dee Clark (November 7, 1938 – December 7, 1990) was an American soul singer best known for a string of R&B and pop hits in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including the song " Raindrops", which became a million-seller in the United States in 1961. Career He was born Delectus ClarkShaw, ''Honkers And Shouters'', 1978, p. 324. or Delecta Clark, Jr. in Blytheville, Arkansas, and moved to Chicago in 1941. His mother, Essie Mae Clark, was a gospel singer and encouraged her son to pursue his love of music. Clark made his first recording in 1952 as a member of the Hambone Kids, who enjoyed some success with a recording of "Hambone" on the OKeh label. In 1953, he joined an R&B group called the Goldentones, who later became the Kool Gents and were discovered by Chicago radio DJ Herb Kent upon winning a talent competition. Kent had the Kool Gents signed to Vee-Jay label's subsidiary Falcon/Abner. The group recorded for Falcon/Abner in 1956, and also recorded a novelty record as "The D ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Brown
James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the honorific nicknames "the Hardest Working Man in Show Business", "Godfather of Soul", "Mr. Dynamite", and "Soul Brother No. 1". In a career that lasted more than 50 years, he influenced the development of several music genres. Brown was one of the first 10 inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural induction in New York on January 23, 1986. Brown began his career as a gospel singer in Toccoa, Georgia. He first came to national public attention in the mid-1950s as the lead singer of the Famous Flames, a rhythm and blues vocal group founded by Bobby Byrd. With the hit ballads "Please, Please, Please" and " Try Me", Brown built a reputation as a dynamic live performer with the Famous Flames and his backing band, sometimes know ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Apollo Theater
The Apollo Theater is a music hall at 253 West 125th Street between Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard (Seventh Avenue) and Frederick Douglass Boulevard (Eighth Avenue) in the Harlem neighborhood of Upper Manhattan in New York City. It is a noted venue for African-American performers, and is the home of ''Showtime at the Apollo'', a nationally syndicated television variety show which showcased new talent, from 1987 to 2008, encompassing 1,093 episodes; the show was rebooted in 2018. The theater, which has a capacity of 1,506, opened in 1913 as Hurtig & Seamon's Music Hall. It was designed by George Keister in the neo-Classical style. Alterations were made that year for showing movies, and it was renamed the Apollo Theater. (It was often referred to as the "125th Street Apollo" to distinguish it from the legitimate Apollo on 42nd Street). In 1924, the Minsky brothers leased the theater for burlesque shows. In 1934, it became a venue for black performers and was opened to black ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Usher (occupation)
An usher is a person who welcomes and shows people where to sit, especially at a church, theatre or when attending a wedding. History The word comes from the Latin ''ostiarius'' ("porter", "doorman") through Norman French, and is a cognate of the French ''huissier''. Ushers were servants or courtiers who showed or ushered visitors in and out of meetings in large houses or palaces. In the United Kingdom, a variety of titles for courtiers in the Royal Household include the word ''usher''. In England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, from the early sixteenth century until at least the end of the nineteenth century, the term denoted an assistant to a schoolmaster or head-teacher; an under-master, assistant-master. In such use, however, the term is now rare. Duties Ushers assist visitors by formally showing the way in a large building or to their appropriate seats. This may coincide with a security role. At weddings, friends of the groom and bride may be recruited to direct gues ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |