HOME
*





Pinetop Smith
Clarence Smith (June 11, 1904 – March 15, 1929), better known as Pinetop Smith or Pine Top Smith, was an American boogie-woogie style blues pianist. His hit tune "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" featured rhythmic "breaks" that were an essential ingredient of ragtime music, but also a fundamental foreshadowing of rock & roll. The song was also the first known use of the term "boogie woogie" on a record, and cemented that term as the moniker for the genre. Career Smith was born to an African American family in Troy, Alabama and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his nickname as a child from his liking for climbing trees. In 1920 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he worked as an entertainer before touring on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (T.O.B.A.) vaudeville circuit, performing as a singer and comedian as well as a pianist. For a time, he worked as accompanist for blues singer Ma Rainey and Butterbeans and Susie. In the mid-1920s, he was recommended b ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Troy, Alabama
Troy is a city in and the county seat of Pike County, Alabama, United States. It was formally incorporated on February 4, 1843. Between 1763 and 1783, the area where Troy sits was part of the colony of British West Florida.The Economy of British West Florida, 1763–1783 by Robin F. A. Fabel (University of Alabama Press, 2002) After 1783, the region fell under the jurisdiction of the newly created United States of America. As of the 2010 census, its population was 18,033. The 2019 estimated population was 18,957. The City of Troy is considered one of the fastest-growing cities in Alabama. Troy is home to Troy University, the fourth-largest university in total enrollment in Alabama. History Before the Civil War For many centuries, the area around Troy was settled by different tribes of Native Americans, but became primarily known for its Muskogee Creek presence. Most Creek tribes lived along rivers or streams at that time. Near the Troy area, many Native Americans ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania behind Philadelphia, and the List of United States cities by population, 68th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 302,971 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The city anchors the Pittsburgh metropolitan area of Western Pennsylvania; its population of 2.37 million is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the Pennsylvania metropolitan areas, second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the List of metropolitan statistical areas, 27th-largest in the U.S. It is the principal city of the greater Pittsburgh–New Castle–Weirton combined statistical area that extends into Ohio and West Virginia. Pitts ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Down Beat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the "downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the " downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Headline
The headline or heading is the text indicating the content or nature of the article below it, typically by providing a form of brief summary of its contents. The large type ''front page headline'' did not come into use until the late 19th century when increased competition between newspapers led to the use of attention-getting headlines. It is sometimes termed a news ''hed'', a deliberate misspelling that dates from production flow during hot type days, to notify the composing room that a written note from an editor concerned a headline and should not be set in type. Headlines in English often use a set of grammatical rules known as '' headlinese'', designed to meet stringent space requirements by, for example, leaving out forms of the verb "to be" and choosing short verbs like "eye" over longer synonyms like "consider". Production A headline's purpose is to quickly and briefly draw attention to the story. It is generally written by a copy editor, but may also be written by t ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Genius". Among friends and fellow musicians he preferred being called "Brother Ray". Charles was blinded during childhood, possibly due to glaucoma. Charles pioneered the soul music genre during the 1950s by combining blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, and gospel styles into the music he recorded for Atlantic Records. He contributed to the integration of country music, rhythm and blues, and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, notably with his two ''Modern Sounds'' albums. While he was with ABC, Charles became one of the first black musicians to be granted artistic control by a mainstream record company. Charles's 1960 hit "Georgia On My Mind" was the first of his three career No. 1 hits on the ''Billboard'' ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


What'd I Say
"What'd I Say" (or "What I Say") is an American rhythm and blues song by Ray Charles, released in 1959. As a single divided into two parts, it was one of the first soul songs. The composition was improvised one evening late in 1958 when Charles, his orchestra, and backup singers had played their entire set list at a show and still had time left; the response from many audiences was so enthusiastic that Charles announced to his producer that he was going to record it. After his run of R&B hits, this song finally broke Charles into mainstream pop music and itself sparked a new subgenre of R&B titled soul, finally putting together all the elements that Charles had been creating since he recorded " I Got a Woman" in 1954. The gospel and rhumba influences combined with the sexual innuendo in the song made it not only widely popular but very controversial to both white and black audiences. It earned Ray Charles his first gold record and has been one of the most influential songs in ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Mess Around
The "Mess Around" is a song written by Ahmet Ertegun, co-founder and then-vice-president of Atlantic Records, under the pseudonym of A. Nugetre, or "Nuggy". It was performed by Ray Charles, and was one of Charles's first hits. Origins and composition Ertegun claimed his inspiration for writing the "Mess Around" was stride pianist Pete Johnson. Earlier versions of the tune's New Orleans boogie piano riff can be heard in songs from the early 1930s and 1940s, with perhaps the earliest example being Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport's "Cow Cow Blues" from 1928. Dr. John also spoke about the origin of this tune on his ''Dr John Teaches New Orleans Piano'' series of DVDs. The song's lyrics urge listeners to dance ("everybody do the Mess Around"), along with a few other key phrases, notably "see that girl with the red dress on", harkening back to "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie", Pinetop Smith's early boogie-woogie classic. Release "Mess Around" became a big R&B charted hit when released as a ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Rent Party
A rent party (sometimes called a house party) is a social occasion where tenants hire a musician or band to play and pass the hat to raise money to pay their rent, originating in Harlem during the 1920s. These parties were a means for black tenants to eat, dance, and get away from everyday hardship and discrimination. The rent party played a major role in the development of jazz and blues music, alongside forms of swing dancing. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that the term ''skiffle'' means "rent party", indicating the informality of the occasion. Thus, the word became associated with informal music. However, many notable jazz musicians are associated with rent parties, including pianists Speckled Red, Georgia Tom, Little Brother Montgomery, James P. Johnson, Willie "the Lion" Smith, and Fats Waller, although rent parties also featured bands as well. The ''OED'' also gives ''boogie'' as a term meaning 'rent party'. Rent parties were often the location of so-called cutti ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year."About Penguin – company history"
, Penguin Books.
Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths Group (United Kingdom), Woolworths and other stores for Sixpence (British coin), sixpence, bringing high-quality fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. Its success showed that large audiences existed for serious books. It also affected modern British popular culture significantly through its books concerning politics, the arts, and science. Penguin Books is now an imprint (trade name), imprint of the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Da Capo Press
Da Capo Press is an American publishing company with headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It is now an imprint of Hachette Books. History Founded in 1964 as a publisher of music books, as a division of Plenum Publishers, it had additional offices in New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Emeryville, California. The year prior, Da Capo Press had net sales of over $2.5 million. Da Capo Press became a general trade publisher in the mid-1970s. It was sold to the Perseus Books Group in 1999 after Plenum was sold to Wolters Kluwer. In the last decade, its production has consisted of mostly nonfiction titles, both hardcover and paperback, focusing on history, music, the performing arts, sports, and popular culture. In 2003, Lifelong Books was founded as a health and wellness imprint. When Marlowe & Company became part of the imprint in 2007, Lifelong's range was expanded to include the New Glucose Revolution series and numerous diabetes titles, as well as books on healthful ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Butterbeans And Susie
Butterbeans and Susie were an American comedy duo comprising Jodie Edwards (July 19, 1893 – October 28, 1967) and Susie Edwards (née Hawthorne; December 1894 – December 5, 1963). They married in 1917, and performed together until the early 1960s. Their act, a combination of marital quarrels, comic dances, and racy singing, proved popular on the Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA) tour. They later moved to vaudeville and appeared for a time with the blackface minstrel troupe the Rabbit's Foot Company.Harris 1994, p. 173. Career Early career and marriage Edwards began his career in 1910 as a singer and dancer. Hawthorne performed in African-American theater. The two met in 1916, when Hawthorne was in the chorus of the show ''Smart Set''. They married onstage the next year. The two began performing as a comic team. They had been touring with the Theatre Owners Booking Association (TOBA) with an African-American husband-and-wife comedy team, Stringbeans and Swee ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]