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Gregory Abbott
Gregory Joel Abbott (born April 2, 1954) is an American singer, musician, composer and producer. Although he continues to record to date, he is best known for his singles in the mid-1980s including his platinum single, "Shake You Down", from his 1986 debut album. Biography Early life Abbott was born in Harlem, New York. Abbott's parents were from Venezuela and Antigua. During his early years, Abbott's mother taught him how to play piano and encouraged him to develop vocally. Before his career as a musician, Abbott studied psychology at University of California, Berkeley, and creative writing at Stanford; where he won a Wallace Stegner fellowship. Before becoming a musician, Abbott taught as a professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. Music career One of Abbott's first opportunities in his studio was an album for an independent record label, which gave him the opportunity to do a duet with Whitney Houston. Continuing on, Abbott produced for the group EQ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shake You Down
"Shake You Down" is a song by American R&B artist, writer and producer Gregory Abbott. It was released in August 1986 as the lead single from his debut album. It became Abbott's biggest hit and was certified platinum by the RIAA. The track is also featured in the 2007 film ''Are We Done Yet?'' Composition According to ''Billboard'', the song is about sex. Music video Dominic Sena of Propaganda Films came up with the idea of the scrolling effect on the music video. It is recorded as a single image on a photographic film. There is also another music video recorded in Rio de Janeiro, especially for the Brazilian TV show ''Fantástico''. Chart performance "Shake You Down" was released as the first single from the album also titled ''Shake You Down''. It went to number one on the black singles chart in October 1986, and on January 17, 1987, it reached the top spot on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 singles chart. ''Billboard'' ranked it as the No. 3 song for 1987.Billboard Year-End Hot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the List of United States cities by population density, most densely populated major city in the United States, and is more than twice as populous as second-place Los Angeles. New York City lies at the southern tip of New York (state), New York State, and constitutes the geographical and demographic center of both the Northeast megalopolis and the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban area, urban landmass. With over 20.1 million people in its metropolitan statistical area and 23.5 million in its combined statistical area as of 2020, New York is one of the world's most populous Megacity, megacities, and over 58 million people live within of the city. New York City is a global city, global Culture of New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billboard Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by '' Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), radio play, and online streaming in the United States. The weekly tracking period for sales was initially Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. This tracking period also applies to compiling online streaming data. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming, is readily available on a real-time basis, is also tracked on a Friday to Thursday cycle effective with the chart dated July 17, 2021 (previously Monday to Sunday and before July 2015, Wednesday to Tuesday). A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by ''Billboard'' on Tuesdays but post-dated to the following Saturday. The first number-one song of the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 was " Poor Little Fool" by Ricky Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Recording Sales Certification
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see List of music recording certifications). Almost all countries follow variations of the RIAA certification categories, which are named after precious materials (gold, platinum and diamond). The threshold required for these awards depends upon the population of the territory where the recording is released. Typically, they are awarded only to international releases and are awarded individually for each country where the album is sold. Different sales levels, some perhaps 10 times greater than others, may exist for different music media (for example: videos versus albums, singles, or music download). History The original gold and silver record awards were presented to artists by their own record companies to publicize their sales achi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most important American labels, specializing in jazz, R&B, and soul by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Ruth Brown and Otis Redding. Its position was greatly improved by its distribution deal with Stax. In 1967, Atlantic became a wholly owned subsidiary of Warner Bros.-Seven Arts, now the Warner Music Group, and expanded into rock and pop music with releases by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Led Zeppelin, and Yes. In 2004, Atlantic and its sister label Elektra were merged into the Atlantic Records Group. Craig Kallman is the chairman of Atlantic. Ahmet Ertegun served as founding chairman until his death on December 14, 2006, at age 83. History Founding and early history In 1944, brothers Nesuhi and Ahmet Erte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston influenced many singers in popular music, and was known for her powerful, soulful vocals and vocal improvisation skills. She is the only artist to have had seven consecutive number-one singles on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100, from "Saving All My Love for You" in 1985 to "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" in 1988. Houston enhanced her popularity upon entering the movie industry. Her recordings and films generated both great success and controversy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career and posthumously, including two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 16 ''Billboard'' Music Awards, and 28 Guinness World Records, as well as induction into the Grammy, Rhythm and Blues Music, and Rock and Roll halls of fame. Houston began singing in chur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers in which the performers have equal importance to the piece, often a composition involving two singers or two pianists. It differs from a harmony, as the performers take turns performing a solo section rather than performing simultaneously. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is a "piano duet" or " piano four hands". A piece for two pianists performing together on separate pianos is a " piano duo". The term ''duet'' is also used as a verb for the act of performing a musical duet, or colloquially as a noun to refer to the performers of a duet. A musical ensemble with more than two solo instruments or voices is called trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, etc. History When Mozart was young, he and his sister Marianne played a duet of his composition at a London concert in 1765. The four-hand, described as a duet, was in many of his compositions which included five sonatas; a set of va ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Indie (music)
Independent music (also commonly known as indie music or simply indie) is music that is produced independently from commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, a process that may include an autonomous, do-it-yourself approach to recording and publishing. The term ''indie'' is sometimes used to describe a genre (such as indie rock and indie pop), and as a genre term, "indie" may or may not include music that is independently produced, and many independent music artists do not fall into a single, defined musical style or genre and create self-published music that can be categorized into diverse genres. The term 'indie' or 'independent music' can be traced back to as early as the 1920s after it was first used to reference independent film companies but was later used as a term to classify an independent band or record producer. Record labels Independent labels have a long history of promoting developments in popular music, stretching back to the post-war period in the United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jet Magazine
''Jet'' is an American weekly digital magazine focusing on news, culture, and entertainment related to the African-American community. Founded in November 1951 by John H. Johnson of the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, Illinois, the magazine was billed as "The Weekly Negro News Magazine". ''Jet'' chronicled the civil rights movement from its earliest years, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the activities of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. ''Jet'' was printed from November 1, 1951, in digest-sized format in all or mostly black-and-white until its December 27, 1999, issue. In 2009, ''Jet'' expanded one of the weekly issues to a double issue published once each month. Johnson Publishing Company struggled with the same loss of circulation and advertising as other magazines and newspapers in the digital age, and the final print issue of ''Jet'' was published on June 23, 2014, continuing solely as a digital magazine app. In 2016, Jo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Studies
English studies (usually called simply English) is an academic discipline taught in primary, secondary, and post-secondary education in English-speaking countries; it is not to be confused with English taught as a foreign language, which is a distinct discipline. An expert on English studies can be called an Anglicist. The discipline involves the study and exploration of texts created in English literature. English studies include: the study of literature (especially novels, plays, short stories, and poetry), the majority of which comes from Britain, the United States, and Ireland (although English-language literature from any country may be studied, and local or national literature is usually emphasized in any given country); English composition, including writing essays, short stories, and poetry; English language arts, including the study of grammar, usage, and style; and English sociolinguistics, including discourse analysis of written and spoken texts in the English l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wallace Stegner Fellowship In Creative Writing
The Stegner Fellowship program is a two-year creative writing fellowship at Stanford University. The award is named after American Wallace Stegner (1909–1993), a historian, novelist, short story writer, environmentalist, and Stanford faculty member who founded the university's creative writing program. Ten fellowships are awarded every year, five in fiction and five in poetry. The recipients do not need a degree to receive the fellowships, though many fellows already hold the terminal M.F.A. degree in creative writing. A workshop-based program, no degree is awarded after the two-year fellowship. Prior to 1990, many fellows also enrolled in Stanford's now-defunct M.A. program in creative writing. Fellows receive a stipend of $43,000 per year, as well as health insurance and their tuition fee for Stanford. Fellows are required to live close enough to Stanford to be able to attend all workshops, as well as other department-related readings and events. History Stegner founded the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
