Dobie Gray
   HOME
*





Dobie Gray
Dobie Gray (born Lawrence Darrow Brown; July 26, 1940 – December 6, 2011) was an American singer and songwriter whose musical career spanned soul, country, pop, and musical theater. His hit songs included " The 'In' Crowd" in 1965 and "Drift Away", which was one of the biggest hits of 1973, has sold over one million copies and remains a staple of radio airplay. Background Gray was born in Simonton, Texas. His birth name was most likely Lawrence Darrow Brown, listed in Fort Bend County birth records as being born in 1940 to Jane and Jethro C. Brown. Other sources suggest he may have been born Leonard Victor Ainsworth, a name he used on some early recordings. His family sharecropped. He discovered gospel music through his grandfather, a Baptist minister. Career In the early 1960s Gray moved to Los Angeles, intending to pursue an acting career while also singing to make money. He recorded for several local labels under the names Leonard Ainsworth, Larry Curtis, and Larry D ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Simonton, Texas
Simonton is a city in Fort Bend County, Texas, United States, within the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area. Simonton is located at the intersection of Farm roads 1093 and 1489, approximately fourteen miles northwest of Richmond, Texas and five miles west of Fulshear, Texas. As of the 2020 U.S. Census, the city population was 647, down from 814 at the 2010 census. History The Simonton Plantation The first event that shaped Simonton's history was when James Simonton and his brother Theophilus bought 4000 acres of land in Northwest Fort Bend County in the 1840s. The two Simonton brothers built a plantation next to the Brazos River. They raised cotton. The year 1850 is officially designated as the founding year for the Simonton since the 1850 US Census showed the two brothers, their mother, Mary, and Theophilus's wife and two sons residing on the property. Another brother, Joseph, and his family moved to the plantation in the 1850s. In 1857, Theophilus helped charter ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Uncle Kracker
Matthew Shafer (born June 6, 1974), also known by his stage name Uncle Kracker, is an American singer and musician. He was previously a turntablist for Kid Rock's backing group Twisted Brown Trucker and since 1999 has recorded as a solo artist. His singles " Follow Me" and "Drift Away" were top 10 hits on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100. Early life Shafer was born in Mount Clemens, Michigan, on June 6, 1974. With his brother Mike Shafer, he visited a nightclub in Clawson, Michigan, where a turntables competition was occurring. His older brother was competing against a then-unknown musician, Kid Rock. Shafer soon became friends with Kid Rock. In those times, he was mainly rapping. He went to L'Anse Creuse High School. In 1994, Kid Rock asked Shafer to play turntables for his band called Twisted Brown Trucker. Shafer knew nothing of using turntables, but since his brother was an experienced DJ, he agreed. He only performed at live shows at the time, until he began recording for Rock ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Gospel Music
Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music, and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music varies according to culture and social context. Gospel music is composed and performed for many purposes, including aesthetic pleasure, religious or ceremonial purposes, and as an entertainment product for the marketplace. Gospel music is characterized by dominant vocals and strong use of harmony with Christian lyrics. Gospel music can be traced to the early 17th century. Hymns and sacred songs were often repeated in a call and response fashion, heavily influenced by ancestral African music. Most of the churches relied on hand-clapping and foot-stomping as rhythmic accompaniment. Most of the singing was done a cappella.Jackson, Joyce Marie. "The changing nature of gospel music: A southern case study." ''African American Review'' 29.2 (1995): 185. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. October 5, 2010. Th ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Sharecropping
Sharecropping is a legal arrangement with regard to agricultural land in which a landowner allows a tenant to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping has a long history and there are a wide range of different situations and types of agreements that have used a form of the system. Some are governed by tradition, and others by law. The Italian ''mezzadria'', the French ''métayage'', the Catalan '' masoveria'', the Castilian ''mediero'', the Slavic ''połowcy'' and ''izdolshchina'', and the Islamic system of ''muzara‘a'' (المزارعة), are examples of legal systems that have supported sharecropping. Overview Sharecropping has benefits and costs for both the owners and the tenant. Under a sharecropping system, the landowner provided a share of land to be worked by the sharecropper, and usually provided other necessities such as housing, tools, seed, or working animals. Local merchants usually provided food and other supplie ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Fort Bend County, Texas
Fort Bend County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. The county was founded in 1837 and organized the next year. It is named for a blockhouse at a bend of the Brazos River. The community developed around the fort in early days. The county seat is Richmond. The largest city located entirely within the county borders is Sugar Land. The largest city by population in the county is Houston; however, most of Houston's population is located in neighboring Harris County. Fort Bend County is included in the Houston– The Woodlands–Sugar Land metropolitan statistical area. As of the 2020 census, the population was 822,779. In 2017, ''Forbes'' ranked it the fifth-fastest growing county in the United States. In 2015, Fort Bend County became Texas's wealthiest county, with a median household income of $95,389 and a median family income of $105,944, surpassing Collin and Rockwall Counties since the 2000 census. History Before European settlement, the area was inhabited ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

The Commercial Appeal
''The Commercial Appeal'' (also known as the ''Memphis Commercial Appeal'') is a daily newspaper of Memphis, Tennessee, and its surrounding metropolitan area. It is owned by the Gannett Company; its former owner, the E. W. Scripps Company, also owned the former afternoon paper, the ''Memphis Press-Scimitar'', which it folded in 1983. The 2016 purchase by Gannett of Journal Media Group (Scripps' direct successor) effectively gave it control of the two major papers in western and central Tennessee, uniting the ''Commercial Appeal'' with Nashville's ''The Tennessean''. ''The Commercial Appeal'' is a seven-day morning paper. It is distributed primarily in Greater Memphis, including Shelby, Fayette, and Tipton counties in Tennessee; DeSoto, Tate, and Tunica counties in Mississippi; and in Crittenden County in Arkansas. These are the contiguous counties to the city of Memphis. ''The Commercial Appeal'' won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for its opposition of the Ku Klu ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Gui ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

All Media Network
RhythmOne , previously known as Blinkx, and also known as RhythmOne Group, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel. Blinkx was founded in 2004, went public on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 2007, and began trading as RhythmOne in 2017. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and London, England. RhythmOne acquired All Media Network and its portfolio of web properties in April 2015. In April 2019, RhythmOne merged with Taptica International (renamed Tremor International in June 2019), an advertising technology company headquartered in Israel. History Blinkx was named after blinkx.com, an Internet Media platform that connects online video viewers with publishers and distributors, using advertising to monetize those interactions. Blinkx has an index of over 35 million hours of video and 800 media partnerships, as well as 111 patents related to the site' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Airplay
Airplay is how frequently a song is being played through broadcasting on radio stations. A song which is being played several times every day (spins) would have a significant amount of airplay. Music which became very popular on jukeboxes, in nightclubs and at discotheques between the 1940s and 1960s would also have airplay. Background For commercial broadcasting, airplay is usually the result of being placed into rotation, also called adding it to the station's playlist by the music director, possibly as the result of a Pay for Play sponsored by the record label. For student radio and other community radio or indie radio stations, it is often the selection by each disc jockey, usually at the suggestion of a music director. Geography Most countries have at least one radio airplay chart in existence, although larger countries such as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Japan, and Brazil have several, to cover different genres and areas of the c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Drift Away
"Drift Away" is a song by Mentor Williams written in 1970 and originally recorded by John Henry Kurtz on his 1972 album ''Reunion''. Mentor Williams was a country songwriter, and John Henry Kurtz was an actor and swamp rock singer. It was later given to soul singer Dobie Gray for whom it became a surprise international hit and the best known version. In 1973 the song became Dobie Gray's biggest hit, peaking at #5 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and certified gold by the RIAA. It was the final pop hit for Decca Records in the United States. A new version by Uncle Kracker, with Gray, became a major hit in 2003. Chart performance (Dobie Gray) Weekly charts Year-end charts Other versions Narvel Felts version A country version was recorded by Narvel Felts in 1973. Felts' version — which changed the lyrics "I wanna get lost in your rock and roll" to "I wanna get lost in your country song" — peaked at #8 on the ''Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in mid-August 1973, ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


The 'In' Crowd (song)
"The 'In' Crowd" is a 1964 song written by Billy Page and arranged by his brother Gene and originally performed by Dobie Gray on his album ''Dobie Gray Sings for "In" Crowders That Go "Go-Go"''. It appeared on an episode of '' Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember'', featuring in the last week of November 1964, the month Gray's rendition was released. Chart performance In the US, Gray's powerful Motown-like version, complete with brass section, reached number 11 on the Hot Rhythm & Blues Singles chart and number 13 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 on 20 February 1965. Outside the US, "The 'In' Crowd" went to number 25 on the UK Singles Chart, and number 8 in Canada. Gray's Shindig! performance of the song aired on 10 March 1965. Ramsey Lewis's instrumental version The Ramsey Lewis Trio recorded an instrumental version of the tune later in 1965. Their jazzy take, recorded live at Bohemian Caverns, a Washington, D.C., night club, reached number 5 on the Hot 100 on 9 October 1965, a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Musical Theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals. Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the works of Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and those of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by the numerous Edwardian musical comedies and the musical theatre ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]