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Martin Block
Martin Block (February 3, 1903 – September 18, 1967) was an American disc jockey. It is said that Walter Winchell invented the term "disc jockey" as a means of describing Block's radio work. Career Early years A native of Los Angeles, Block began working in radio in Tijuana, Mexico; before that, he sold small household items and appliances. At the age of only 13, he became an office boy at General Electric. When his career had stalled in Los Angeles, Block moved his family to New York; he was only there for a week before he got an announcing job. Block came up with two famous advertising slogans for his sponsors: "ABC-Always Buy Chesterfield" for Liggett & Myers and "LSMFT"-Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" for Lucky Strike. He was also an avid amateur radio operator with a large station at his home in Englewood, New Jersey. Career break: Make Believe Ballroom In 1934, Block went to work for WNEW at a salary of $20 per week. In 1935, while listeners to New York's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and borders fourteen countries by land, the most of any country in the world, tied with Russia. Covering an area of approximately , it is the world's third largest country by total land area. The country consists of 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four municipalities, and two Special Administrative Regions (Hong Kong and Macau). The national capital is Beijing, and the most populous city and financial center is Shanghai. Modern Chinese trace their origins to a cradle of civilization in the fertile basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. The semi-legendary Xia dynasty in the 21st century BCE and the well-attested Shang and Zhou dynasties developed a bureaucratic political system to serve hereditary monarchies, or dyna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pepper Young's Family
''Pepper Young's Family'' is a daytime drama series, with various format and title changes during its long run from 1932 to 1959. It was created and written by short story author and playwright Elaine Sterne Carrington. History With Burgess Meredith in the title role, the program began as ''Red Adams'', about high school athlete Red Adams, his family, and his friends. The 30-minute series was broadcast on the Blue Network, airing on Sunday nights at 10:30pm. When Beech-Nut Gum signed as a sponsor, they wanted no mention of their competition, Adams gum, so the title changed to ''Red Davis'', a 15-minute series heard three times a week from 1933 to 1935. The series was again retitled, and the 15-minute ''Forever Young'' was heard on NBC weekdays at 3pm from January 13 to June 26, 1936. Three days later, on June 29, it became ''Pepper Young's Family'', continuing on NBC for the next 23 years with Procter & Gamble's Camay as the sponsor. Meredith was replaced by Curtis Arnall in 19 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Chesterfield Supper Club
''The Chesterfield Supper Club'' is an NBC Radio musical variety program (1944–1950), which was also telecast by NBC Television (1948–1950). Radio ''The Chesterfield Supper Club'' began on December 11, 1944, as a 15-minute radio program, airing at 7 pm weeknights on the NBC Radio Network. This musical variety show was sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes and featured live musical performances. Perry Como initially hosted ''The Chesterfield Supper Club'' five nights a week. Initially, Como's female singer was Mary Ashworth. The idea for the radio show originated with Doug Storer, who was then an advertising executive with the Blackman Company. Storer had heard Perry Como on his non-sponsored CBS radio program and believed he would do well in a radio show of the type he was proposing. Storer recorded a demo of the radio show with Como as its host and Mitchell Ayres and his Orchestra providing the music. He took the recording to the advertising agency that handled the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice Of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is the state-owned news network and international radio broadcaster of the United States of America. It is the largest and oldest U.S.-funded international broadcaster. VOA produces digital, TV, and radio content in 48 languages which it distributes to affiliate stations around the globe. It is primarily viewed by a non-American audience. VOA was established in 1942, and the VOA charter (Public Laws 94-350 and 103–415) was signed into law in 1976 by President Gerald Ford. VOA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., and overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), an independent agency of the U.S. government. Funds are appropriated annually under the budget for embassies and consulates. In 2016, VOA broadcast an estimated 1,800 hours of radio and TV programming each week to approximately 236.6 million people worldwide with about 1,050 employees and a taxpayer-funded annual budget of . While Voice of America is seen by some foreign list ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Franklin
Joe Franklin (March 9, 1926 – January 24, 2015), born Joseph Fortgang, was an American radio and television host personality, author and actor from New York City. Franklin is noted for having the first talk show and inventing the format. His television series debuted in January 1951 on WJZ-TV (later WABC-TV), moving to WOR-TV (later WWOR-TV) in 1962, remaining there until 1993, one of the longest running uninterrupted careers in broadcasting history. Early life Franklin was born Joseph Fortgang on March 9, 1926, in The Bronx, New York, the elder of two children, to Austrian Jewish parents, Anna (Heller) and Martin Fortgang. He acknowledged in his memoirs, ''Up Late With Joe Franklin,'' (which was written with R. J. Marx), that his press materials had long said, purposely, that he had been born in 1928, but he planned to come clean about his real birth date. As a teenager, Franklin "followed around" Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor, the latter of whom eventually began buying jokes fro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Jones
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, hiccups, burps, and outlandish and comedic vocals. Jones and his band recorded under the title Spike Jones and His City Slickers from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, and toured the United States and Canada as "The Musical Depreciation Revue". Biography Lindley Armstrong Jones was born in Long Beach, California, the son of Ada (Armstrong) and Lindley Murray Jones, a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley Jones was given the nickname 'Spike' for being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself; Jones' first band was called Spike Jones and his Five Tacks. A railroad restaurant chef taught him how ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1942–44 Musicians' Strike
Year 194 ( CXCIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Septimius and Septimius (or, less frequently, year 947 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 194 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place Roman Empire * Emperor Septimius Severus and Decimus Clodius Septimius Albinus Caesar become Roman Consuls. * Battle of Issus: Septimius Severus marches with his army (12 legions) to Cilicia, and defeats Pescennius Niger, Roman governor of Syria. Pescennius retreats to Antioch, and is executed by Severus' troops. * Septimius Severus besieges Byzantium (194–196); the city walls suffer extensive damage. Asia * Battle of Yan Province: Warlords Cao Cao and Lü Bu fight for control over Yan Province; the battle lasts for over 100 days ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based in New York City from the mid-1920s and gained a national profile through his orchestra's appearances at the Cotton Club in Harlem. A master at writing miniatures for the three-minute 78 rpm recording format, Ellington wrote or collaborated on more than one thousand compositions; his extensive body of work is the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and many of his pieces have become standards. He also recorded songs written by his bandsmen, such as Juan Tizol's " Caravan", which brought a Spanish tinge to big band jazz. At the end of the 1930s, Ellington began a nearly thirty-year collaboration with composer-arranger-pianist Billy Strayhorn, whom he called his writing and arranging companion. With Strayhorn, he composed multipl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Armstrong
Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and several eras in the history of jazz. Armstrong was born and raised in New Orleans. Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an inventive trumpet and cornet player, Armstrong was a foundational influence in jazz, shifting the focus of the music from collective improvisation to solo performance. Around 1922, he followed his mentor, Joe "King" Oliver, to Chicago to play in the . In Chicago, he spent time with other popular jazz musicians, reconnecting with his friend Bix Beiderbecke and spending time with Hoagy Carmichael and Lil Hardin. He earned a reputation at "cutting contests", and his fame reached band leader Fletcher Henderson. Henderson persuaded Armstrong to come to New York City, where he became a featured and musically influential band soloist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cab Calloway
Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, conductor and dancer. He was associated with the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he was a regular performer and became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole. Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the '' Billboard'' charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s). Calloway ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Krupa
Eugene Bertram Krupa (January 15, 1909 – October 16, 1973), known as Gene Krupa, was an American jazz drummer, bandleader and composer who performed with energy and showmanship. His drum solo on Benny Goodman's 1937 recording of "Sing, Sing, Sing" elevated the role of the drummer from an accompanist to an important solo voice in the band. In collaboration with the Slingerland drum and Zildjian cymbal manufacturers, he was a major force in defining the standard band drummer's kit. Krupa is considered "the founding father of the modern drumset" by ''Modern Drummer'' magazine. Early life The youngest of Anna (née Oslowski) and Bartłomiej Krupa's nine children, Gene Krupa was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Bartłomiej was an immigrant from Poland born in the village of Łęki Górne, southeastern Poland. Anna was born in Shamokin, Pennsylvania, and was also of Polish descent. His parents were Roman Catholics who groomed him for the priesthood. He spent his grammar s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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