|
Sammy Davis Jr. Now
''Sammy Davis Jr. Now'' is a 1972 album by Sammy Davis Jr. The album features the number one hit "The Candy Man", a Grammy-nominated song. The rest of the album is made up of standards, big ballads and soul tracks. Reception Eugene Chadbourne of AllMusic rated ''Sammy Davis Jr. Now'' one-and-a-half out of five stars. He stated that "there are tracks enough on this album that are painful to sit through", but also said that "The Candy Man" "surely will retain its historical value simply for being about the closest music has ever come to being pure excrement." He concluded his review by stating that "it is big enough for the artist himself to hide behind". Track listing # "The Candy Man" – 3:10 (covered from the film, ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'') (Leslie Bricusse, Anthony Newley) # "This is My Life" – 3:23 (Bruno Canfora) # "I am Over 25 - But You Can Trust Me" – 3:24 (Mack David, Mike Curb) # "Have a Little Talk with Myself" – 3:26 (Ray Stevens) # "Willoughby ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, dancer, actor, comedian, film producer and television director. At age three, Davis began his career in vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became an overnight sensation following a nightclub performance at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) after the 1951 Academy Awards. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced by African-American and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography Biography.com. Retrieved June 6, 2013.< ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leslie Bricusse
Leslie Bricusse OBE (; 29 January 1931 – 19 October 2021) was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films ''Doctor Dolittle'', ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'', '' Scrooge'', ''Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory'', '' Tom and Jerry: The Movie'', the songs " Goldfinger", " You Only Live Twice", "Can You Read My Mind (Love Theme)" (with John Williams) from ''Superman'', and "Le Jazz Hot!" with Henry Mancini from ''Victor/Victoria''. Early life and education Born in Pinner, Middlesex, now the London Borough of Harrow. Bricusse was educated at University College School in London and then at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. While at Cambridge, he was Secretary of Footlights between 1952 and 1953 and Footlights President during the following year. It was during his college drama career that he began working for Beatrice Lillie. Career In the 1960s and 1 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shaft (1971 Film)
''Shaft'' is a 1971 American crime action film directed by Gordon Parks and written by Ernest Tidyman and John D. F. Black. It is an adaptation of Tidyman's novel of the same name and is the first entry in the ''Shaft'' film series. The plot revolves around a private detective named John Shaft who is hired by a Harlem mobster to rescue his daughter from the Italian mobsters who kidnapped her. The film stars Richard Roundtree as Shaft, alongside Moses Gunn, Charles Cioffi, Christopher St. John and Lawrence Pressman. The film has themes of Black Power movement, race, masculinity, and sexuality. It was filmed in Harlem, Greenwich Village, and Times Square within the Manhattan borough of New York City. The ''Shaft'' soundtrack album, recorded by Isaac Hayes, was also a success, winning him a Grammy Award for Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture and a second Grammy (shared with Johnny Allen) for Best Instrumental Arrangement. The " Theme from ''Shaft''" won the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theme From Shaft
"Theme from ''Shaft''", written and recorded by Isaac Hayes in 1971, is the soul and funk-styled theme song to the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film ''Shaft''. The theme was released as a single (shortened and edited from the longer album version) two months after the movie's soundtrack by Stax Records' Enterprise label. "Theme from ''Shaft''" went to number two on the Billboard Soul Singles chart (behind "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" by Marvin Gaye) and to number one on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in the United States in November 1971. The song was also well received by adult audiences, reaching number six on Billboard's Easy Listening chart. The song is considered by some to be one of the first disco songs. The following year, "Theme from ''Shaft''" won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, with Hayes becoming the first African American to win that honor – or any Academy Award in a non-acting category – as well as the first recipient of the award who both wrote an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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] |
Jimmy Webb
Jimmy Layne Webb (born August 15, 1946) is an American songwriter, composer, and singer. He has written numerous platinum-selling songs, including " Up, Up and Away", "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", "MacArthur Park", "Wichita Lineman", "Worst That Could Happen", "Galveston" and "All I Know". He had successful collaborations with Glen Campbell, Michael Feinstein, Linda Ronstadt, the 5th Dimension, the Supremes, Art Garfunkel and Richard Harris. Webb was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1986 and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1990. He received the National Academy of Songwriters Lifetime Achievement Award in 1993, the Songwriters Hall of Fame Johnny Mercer Award in 2003, the ASCAP "Voice of Music" Award in 2006 and the Ivor Novello Special International Award in 2012. According to BMI, his song "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" was the third most performed song in the 50 years between 1940 and 1990. Webb is the only artist ever to receive Grammy Awards for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacArthur Park (song)
"MacArthur Park" is a song written by American singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb that was recorded first by Irish actor and singer Richard Harris in 1968. Harris's version peaked at number two on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart and number four on the UK Singles Chart. "MacArthur Park" was subsequently covered by numerous artists, including a 1969 Grammy-winning version by country music singer Waylon Jennings and a number one ''Billboard'' Hot 100 disco arrangement by Donna Summer in 1978.Boucher, Geoff"'MacArthur Park' Jimmy Webb , 1968" ''Los Angeles Times'', June 10, 2007. Retrieved June 1, 2015 In 1967, producer Bones Howe had asked Webb to create a pop song with different movements and changing time signatures. Webb delivered "MacArthur Park" to Howe with "everything he wanted", but Howe did not care for the ambitious arrangement and unorthodox lyrics and the song was rejected by the group The Association, for whom it had been intended. Jimmy Webb songwriting Composition "Mac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irving Caesar
Irving Caesar (born Isidor Keiser, July 4, 1895 – December 18, 1996) was an American lyricist and theater composer who wrote lyrics for numerous song standards, including " Swanee", "Sometimes I'm Happy", "Crazy Rhythm", and " Tea for Two", one of the most frequently recorded tunes ever written. In 1972, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Biography Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jew, was born in New York City, United States. His older brother Arthur Caesar was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. The Caesar brothers spent their childhood and teen years in Yorkville, the same Manhattan neighborhood where the Marx Brothers were raised. Caesar knew the Marx Brothers during his childhood. He was educated at Chappaqua Mountain Institute in Chappaqua, New York. In his career, Caesar collaborated with a wide variety of composers and songwriters, including Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Sigmund Romberg, Victor Herbert, Ted Koehler and Ray Hender ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Youmans
Vincent Millie Youmans (September 27, 1898 – April 5, 1946) was an American Broadway composer and producer. A leading Broadway composer of his day, Youmans collaborated with virtually all the greatest lyricists on Broadway: Ira Gershwin, Otto Harbach, Oscar Hammerstein II, Irving Caesar, Anne Caldwell, Leo Robin, Howard Dietz, Clifford Grey, Billy Rose, Edward Eliscu, Edward Heyman, Harold Adamson, Buddy DeSylva and Gus Kahn. Youmans' early songs are remarkable for their economy of melodic material: two-, three- or four-note phrases are constantly repeated and varied by subtle harmonic or rhythmic changes. In later years, however, he turned to longer musical sentences and more rhapsodic melodic lines. Youmans published fewer than 100 songs, but 18 of these were considered standards by ASCAP, a remarkably high percentage. Biography Youmans was born in New York City, United States, into a prosperous family of hat makers. When he was two, his father moved the family to upp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
I Want To Be Happy
"I Want to Be Happy" is a song with music by Vincent Youmans and lyrics by Irving Caesar written for the 1925 musical '' No, No, Nanette''. Musical The song is used several times throughout the musical as a running theme representing the attempts of various people to please others. It is first sung by the character Jimmy to his ward Nanette. Film appearances *1930 '' No, No, Nanette'' *1940 '' No, No, Nanette'' - sung by Anna Neagle and Richard Carlson *1950 '' Tea for Two'' - sung by Doris Day, and also sung by Doris Day and Gordon MacRae *1988 ''Torch Song Trilogy'' - performed by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra *1995 ''Stuart Saves His Family'' - performed by Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra starring Warren Covington *1999 ''Entrapment'' - performed by Ted Heath and His Orchestra *2015 ''Joy'' - performed by Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb and His Orchestra Recordings “I Want to Be Happy” charted several times over thirteen years: * Carl Fenton and His Orchestra (1924, Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scrooge (1970 Film)
''Scrooge'' is a 1970 musical film adaptation of Charles Dickens' 1843 story ''A Christmas Carol''. It was filmed in London between January and May 1970 and directed by Ronald Neame, and starred Albert Finney as Ebenezer Scrooge. The film's score was composed by Leslie Bricusse and arranged and conducted by Ian Fraser. With eleven musical arrangements interspersed throughout, the award-winning motion picture is a faithful musical retelling of the original. The film was a follow-up to another Dickens musical adaptation, 1968’s award-winning ''Oliver!''. The posters for ''Scrooge'' included the tagline "What the dickens have they done to Scrooge?", designed to head off any criticism of an all-singing, all-dancing old skinflint. Finney won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical/Comedy in 1971. The film received four Academy Award nominations, including for Best Original Song for "Thank You Very Much". Plot On Christmas Eve 1860, in London, Ebenezer Scrooge, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Jimmy Webb")