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Ray Stevens
Harold Ray Ragsdale (born January 24, 1939), known professionally as Ray Stevens, is an American country and pop singer-songwriter and comedian, known for his Grammy-winning recordings "Everything Is Beautiful" and "Misty", as well as novelty hits such as "Gitarzan" and "The Streak". Stevens has received gold albums for his music sales and has worked as a producer, music arranger, and television host. He is also an inductee of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Christian Music Hall of Fame, and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Early life Harold Ray Ragsdale was born on January 24, 1939, in Clarkdale, Georgia. He is the elder of two sons born to Willis Harold Ragsdale (1915–2001) and Frances Stephens Ragsdale (1916–97). He has a younger brother, John, who was an actor and writer. John died in 2020 at the age of 75. While attending high school, Stevens formed his first band, a rhythm and blues group named The Barons. Follow ...
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Everything Is Beautiful
"Everything Is Beautiful" is a song written, composed, and performed by Ray Stevens. It has appeared on many of Stevens's albums, including one named after the song, and has become a pop standard and common in religious performances. The children heard singing the chorus of the song, using the hymn, "Jesus Loves the Little Children", are from the Oak Hill Elementary School in Nashville, Tennessee. This group includes Stevens's two daughters. The song was responsible for two wins at the Grammy Awards of 1971: Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for Ray Stevens and Grammy Award for Best Inspirational Performance for Jake Hess. Stevens's recording was the Number 1 song on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 for two weeks in the summer of 1970. The song also spent three weeks atop the adult contemporary chart. Many country stations played the song, with it peaking at number 39 on ''Billboard''s chart. ''Billboard'' ranked the record as the No. 12 song of 1970. The song includes an ...
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Misty (song)
"Misty" is a jazz standard written in 1954 by pianist Erroll Garner. He composed it as an instrumental in the traditional 32-bar format, and recorded it for the album '' Contrasts''. Lyrics were added later by Johnny Burke. It appeared on Johnny Mathis' 1959 album '' Heavenly'', and this recording reached number 12 on the U.S. Pop Singles chart later that year. It has since become the signature song of Mathis. The song has been recorded by many other artists, including versions by Ella Fitzgerald, Aretha Franklin, Frank Sinatra and Sarah Vaughan. Recordings by both Mathis and Garner have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. It was ranked number 174 in the list of the Songs of the Century compiled by Recording Industry Association of America and National Endowment for the Arts. Composition Erroll Garner was inspired to write "Misty" on a flight from San Francisco to Chicago which passed through a thunderstorm: as the plane descended into O'Hare, Garner looked through t ...
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PUFFERY
In everyday language, puffery refers to exaggerated or false praise. Puffery serves to "puff up" what is being described. In law, puffery is usually invoked as a defense argument: it identifies futile speech, typically of a seller, which does not give rise to legal liability. In a circular manner, legal explanations for this normative position describe the non-enforceable speech as a statement that no "reasonable person" would take seriously anyway. Origin In a legal context, the term originated in the 1892 English Court of Appeal case ''Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Company'', which centred on whether a monetary reimbursement should be paid when an influenza preventive device failed to work. The manufacturers had paid for advertising stating that £100 would be paid in such circumstances then failed to follow this promise. Part of their defence was that such a statement was "mere puff" and not meant to be taken seriously. While the defence ultimately lost the case, the princi ...
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Janus Records
Janus Records was a record label owned by GRT Records, also known as General Recorded Tape. The label was in operation from 1969 to 1979. History Janus was founded in July 1969 as a joint venture of GRT and British label Pye Records. In its early years of operation the bulk of Janus' acts were U.S. issues of Pye product. Its first major hit was "Baby Take Me in Your Arms" by Jefferson, in late 1969. Other acts in Janus' early years included Pye artists Status Quo, Pickettywitch and Sounds Orchestral. Up to the early 1970s, the label's president was Marvin Schlactner, who later ran the ill-fated U.S. Pye label, which by 1976 evolved into Prelude Records. GRT assumed sole ownership of Janus in 1971, after Pye pulled out of the venture.
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Capitol Records
Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of note in the United States in 1942 by Johnny Mercer, Buddy DeSylva, and Glenn E. Wallichs. Capitol was acquired by British music conglomerate EMI as its North American subsidiary in 1955. EMI was acquired by Universal Music Group in 2012, and was merged with the company a year later, making Capitol and the Capitol Music Group both distributed by UMG. The label's circular headquarters building is a recognized landmark of Hollywood, California. Both the label itself and its famous building are sometimes referred to as "The House That Nat Built." This refers to one of Capitol's most famous artists, Nat King Cole. Capitol is also well known as the U.S. record label of the Beatles, especially during the years of Beatlemania in America from 1964 ...
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Georgia State University
Georgia State University (Georgia State, State, or GSU) is a Public university, public research university in Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1913, it is one of the University System of Georgia's four research universities. It is also the largest institution of higher education by enrollment based in Georgia and is in the List of United States university campuses by enrollment, top 10 in the nation in number of students with a diverse Majority minority, majority-minority student population of around 54,000 students, including approximately 33,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the main campus downtown. Georgia State is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classified among "List of research universities in the United States#Universities classified as "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity", R1: Doctoral Universities – Very High Research Activity". The university's over $200 million in research expenditures for the 2018 f ...
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Rhythm And Blues
Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated in African-American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music ... ith aheavy, insistent beat" was becoming more popular. In the commercial rhythm and blues music typical of the 1950s through the 1970s, the bands usually consisted of piano, one or two guitars, bass, drums, one or more saxophones, and sometimes background vocalists. R&B lyrical themes often encapsulate the African-American experience of pain and the quest for freedom and joy, as well as triumphs and failures in terms of relationships, economics, and aspirations. The term "rhythm and blues" has undergone a number of shifts in meaning. In the early 1950s, it was frequently applied to blues records. Starting in the mid-1950s, after this style of music contr ...
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Country Music Hall Of Fame And Museum
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amassed one of the world's most extensive musical collections. History of the museum The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum is the world's largest repository of country music artifacts. Early in the 1960s, as the Country Music Association's (CMA) campaign to publicize country music was accelerating, CMA leaders determined that a new organization was needed to operate a country music museum and related activities beyond CMA's scope as a simply a trade organization. Toward this end, the nonprofit Country Music Foundation (CMF) was chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964 to collect, preserve, and publicize information and artifacts relating to the history of country music. Through CMF, industry leaders raised money with the effort of CMA Ex ...
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Georgia Music Hall Of Fame
The Georgia Music Hall of Fame was a hall of fame to recognize music performers and music industry professionals from or connected to the state of Georgia. It began with efforts of the state's lieutenant governor Zell Miller to attract the music industry to Georgia. Following the first Georgia Music Week in 1978, the first Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards were held in 1979, with two inductees. The hall eventually had 163 inductees; the final inductions were made in 2015. The Georgia Music Hall of Fame Museum was located in downtown Macon, Georgia, United States, from 1996 until it closed in 2011. The Hall of Fame museum preserved and interpreted the state's musical heritage through programs of collection, exhibition, education, and performance; it attempted to foster an appreciation for Georgia music and tried to stimulate economic growth through a variety of dynamic partnerships and initiatives statewide. The museum closed due to low attendance and reduced state funding. Merc ...
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Nashville Songwriters Hall Of Fame
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame was established in 1970 by the Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc. in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. A non-profit organization, its objective is to honor and preserve the songwriting legacy that is uniquely associated with the music community in the city of Nashville. The Foundation's stated purpose is to educate, archive, and celebrate the contributions of the members of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame to the world of music. The Nashville Songwriters Foundation, Inc., is governed by a board of directors, currently consisting of thirteen members. Annually, three songwriters are inducted into the Hall of Fame. Inductees 1970s ;1970 *Gene Autry * Johnny Bond * Albert E. Brumley * A.P. Carter * Ted Daffan * Vernon Dalhart * Rex Griffin * Stuart Hamblen * Pee Wee King * Vic McAlpin * Bob Miller (songwriter), Bob Miller * Leon Payne * Jimmie Rodgers (country singer), Jimmie Rodgers * Fred Rose (songwriter), Fred Rose * Redd Stewa ...
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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 ...
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The Streak (song)
"The Streak" is a country/novelty song written, produced, and sung by Ray Stevens. It was released in February 1974 as the lead single to his album '' Boogity Boogity''. "The Streak" capitalized on the then-popular craze of streaking. In 2007, Cledus T. Judd covered "The Streak" on his album ''Boogity Boogity - A Tribute to the Comic Genius of Ray Stevens''. One of Stevens' most successful recordings, "The Streak" was his second No. 1 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 singles chart in the US, spending three weeks at the top in May 1974, as well as reaching No. 3 on the ''Billboard'' Hot Country Singles chart. A major international hit, it also reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart, spending a single week at the top of the chart in June 1974. In total it sold over five million copies internationally and ranked on ''Billboard''′s top hits of 1974 at number 8. Origin Stevens has stated that he first got the idea for the song while reading a news magazine on an airplane. The magazine i ...
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