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Leon Sylvers III
Leon Frank Sylvers III (born March 7, 1953, Memphis, Tennessee) is an American singer, songwriter, disc-jockey, record producer and multi-instrumentalist. He was a member of the family group The Sylvers and became one of the most successful producers in black music in the late 1970s to the mid-1980s through his association with Dick Griffey's SOLAR Records. Artists such as J Dilla, Dr. Dre, and Madlib have sampled songs written and produced by him. Biography Beginnings Leon Sylvers and his family moved from Memphis to Los Angeles, "near Adams and Crenshaw," in 1956. He first rose to prominence in the early 1960s as a member of The Little Angels harmony vocal group featuring his siblings (Olympia, Charmaine, and James). After hearing them perform in Las Vegas in 1959, Ed Sullivan predicted they would become famous. During this time they appeared on variety shows such as ''Make Room for Daddy'', ''You Bet Your Life'', and ''The Spike Jones Show''. They also toured the United St ...
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Memphis, Tennessee
Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-most populous city in Tennessee, after Nashville. Memphis is the fifth-most populous city in the Southeast, the nation's 28th-largest overall, as well as the largest city bordering the Mississippi River. The Memphis metropolitan area includes West Tennessee and the greater Mid-South region, which includes portions of neighboring Arkansas, Mississippi and the Missouri Bootheel. One of the more historic and culturally significant cities of the Southern United States, Memphis has a wide variety of landscapes and distinct neighborhoods. The first European explorer to visit the area of present-day Memphis was Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto in 1541. The high Chickasaw Bluffs protecting the location from the waters of the Mississipp ...
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The Whispers
The Whispers is an American group from Los Angeles, California, who have scored hit records since the late 1960s. They are best known for their two number one R&B singles, " And the Beat Goes On" in 1980 and "Rock Steady" in 1987. The Whispers scored 15 top-ten R&B singles, and 8 top-ten R&B albums with two of them, ''The Whispers'' and '' Love Is Where You Find It'', reaching the 1 spot. They have earned two platinum and five gold albums by the RIAA. Career The Whispers formed in 1963 in Watts, California. The original members included identical twin brothers Wallace "Scotty" and Walter Scott, along with Gordy Harmon, Marcus Hutson, and Nicholas Caldwell. After being invited to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1966 by Sly Stone, the group relocated to that area where they began developing a reputation as a show-stopping live act. Walter Scott was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War during that period for eighteen months, returning to the group in 1969 after discharge. After Ha ...
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You Bet Your Life
''You Bet Your Life'' is an American comedy quiz series that has aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show debuted on ABC Radio on October 27, 1947, moved to CBS Radio debuting October 5, 1949, and went to NBC-TV and NBC Radio on October 4, 1950. Because of its simple format, it was possible to broadcast the show on both radio and television but not simultaneously. Many of the laughs on the television show were evoked by Groucho's facial reactions and other visual gimmicks; the two versions were slightly different. The last episode in a radio format aired on June 10, 1960. The series continued on television for another year, recording a season on September 22, 1960 with a new title, ''The Groucho Show''. Gameplay on each episode of ''You Bet Your Life'' was generally secondary to Groucho's comedic interplay with contestants and often with Fennema ...
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Make Room For Daddy
''The Danny Thomas Show'' (titled ''Make Room for Daddy'' for its first three seasons) is an American sitcom that ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS. Starring Danny Thomas as a successful night club entertainer, the show focused on his relationship with his family, yet went through a number of significant changes in cast and characters during the course of its run. Episodes regularly featured music by Thomas, guest stars and occasionally other cast members as part of the plot. In March 1953, Thomas first signed the contract for the show with ABC and chose Desilu Studios to film it using its three-camera method.''The I Love Lucy Book'' by Bart Andrews (revised and updated Broadway Books trade paperback edition, 2001), , p. 116 Two proposed titles during pre-production were ''The Children's Hour'' and ''Here Comes Daddy''. Synopsis Thomas played the role of Danny Williams, a successful comedian and nightclub entertainer at the Copa Club, based on the iconic ...
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Ed Sullivan
Edward Vincent Sullivan (September 28, 1901 – October 13, 1974) was an American television personality, impresario, sports and entertainment reporter, and syndicated columnist for the ''New York Daily News'' and the Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate. He was the creator and host of the television variety program ''The Toast of the Town'', which in 1955 was renamed ''The Ed Sullivan Show''. Broadcast from 1948 to 1971, it set a record as the longest-running variety show in US broadcast history. "It was, by almost any measure, the last great American TV show," said television critic David Hinckley. "It's one of our fondest, dearest pop culture memories." Sullivan was a broadcasting pioneer during the early years of American television. As critic David Bianculli wrote, "Before MTV, Sullivan presented rock acts. Before Bravo, he presented jazz and classical music and theater. Before the Comedy Channel, even before there was ''The Tonight Show'', Sullivan discovered, anoint ...
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Madlib
Otis Jackson Jr. (born October 24, 1973), known professionally as Madlib, is an American DJ, music producer, multi-instrumentalist, and rapper. He is widely known for his collaborations with MF DOOM (as Madvillain), J Dilla (as Jaylib), and Freddie Gibbs (as MadGibbs). Madlib has described himself as a "DJ first, producer second, and MC last." Aziri (2002). His stage name is an acronym for "Mind Altering Demented Lessons In Beats". Early life Otis Jackson Jr. was born on October 24, 1973, in Oxnard, California, to musician parents Otis Jackson, Sr. and Dora Sinesca Jackson. He sampled his first song at 11 years old, sourced from his father's collection. His younger brother is the producer and rapper Michael "Oh No" Jackson. His uncle is the jazz trumpeter Jon Faddis. He was raised in Oxnard, where he began his music career. Music career 1993–1998: Early career In the early 1990s, Madlib formed a loose-knit collective composed of rappers who worked with him in his Oxna ...
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J Dilla
J, or j, is the tenth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its usual name in English is ''jay'' (pronounced ), with a now-uncommon variant ''jy'' ."J", ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' 2nd edition (1989) When used in the International Phonetic Alphabet for the ''y'' sound, it may be called ''yod'' or ''jod'' (pronounced or ). History The letter ''J'' used to be used as the swash letter ''I'', used for the letter I at the end of Roman numerals when following another I, as in XXIIJ or xxiij instead of XXIII or xxiii for the Roman numeral twenty-three. A distinctive usage emerged in Middle High German. Gian Giorgio Trissino (1478–1550) was the first to explicitly distinguish I and J as representing separate sounds, in his ''Ɛpistola del Trissino de le lettere nuωvamente aggiunte ne la lingua italiana'' ("Trissino's epistle about the letters recently added in the It ...
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Dick Griffey
Richard Gilbert Griffey (November 16, 1938 – September 24, 2010) was an American record producer and music promoter who founded SOLAR Records, a RAS acronym for "Sound of Los Angeles Records". The label played a major role in developing a funk-oriented blend of disco, R&B and soul music during the 1970s and 1980s. As a concert promoter, Griffey arranged bookings for artists such as James Brown, The Sylvers, Aretha Franklin, Jon Gibson, Stevie Wonder and the Jacksons. Personal life and career Richard Gilbert Griffey was born on November 16, 1938. He was raised by his mother, Juanita Hines, and stepfather in the housing projects of Nashville, Tennessee. There he was a drummer in local nightclubs during his teens. After briefly attending Tennessee State University, he enlisted in the United States Navy at age 17. He served as a medic and worked as a private-duty nurse after completing his military service.Hevesi, Dennis"Dick Griffey, Founder of Solar Records, Is Dead at 71" ...
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Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays two or more musical instruments at a professional level of proficiency. Also known as doubling, the practice allows greater ensemble flexibility and more efficient employment of musicians, where a particular instrument may be employed only briefly or sporadically during a performance. Doubling is not uncommon in orchestra (e.g., flutists who double on piccolo) and jazz (saxophone/flute players); double bass players might also perform on electric bass. In music theatre, a pit orchestra's reed players might be required to perform on multiple instruments. Church piano players are often expected to play the church's pipe organ or Hammond organ as well. In popular music it is more common than in classical or jazz for performers to be proficient on instruments not from the same family, for instance to play both guitar and keyboards. Many bluegrass musicians are multi-instrumentalists. Some musicians' unions or associations specify a ...
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Record Producer
A record producer is a recording project's creative and technical leader, commanding studio time and coaching artists, and in popular genres typically creates the song's very sound and structure.Virgil Moorefield"Introduction" ''The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music'' (Cambridge, MA & London, UK: MIT Press, 2005).Richard James Burgess, ''The History of Music Production'' (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014)pp 12–13Allan Watson, ''Cultural Production in and Beyond the Recording Studio'' (New York: Routledge, 2015)pp 25–27 The record producer, or simply the producer, is likened to film director and art director. The executive producer, on the other hand, enables the recording project through entrepreneurship, and an audio engineer operates the technology. Varying by project, the producer may or may not choose all of the artists. If employing only synthesized or sampled instrumentation, the producer may be the sole artist. Conversely, some artists ...
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Disc-jockey
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile DJs (who are hired to work at public and private events such as weddings, parties, or festivals), and turntablists (who use record players, usually turntables, to manipulate sounds on phonograph records). Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names. DJs commonly use audio equipment that can play at least two sources of recorded music simultaneously. This enables them to blend tracks together to create tr ...
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