Vicki Sue Robinson
Vicki Sue Robinson (May 31, 1954 – April 27, 2000) was an American theatre and film actress, and singer, closely associated with the disco era of late 1970s pop music; she is most famous for her 1976 hit, "Turn the Beat Around". Early life Born in Harlem, New York, to African American Shakespearean actor Bill Robinson and his European American wife Marianne, a folk singer, Vicki Sue Robinson was reared in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for most of her early years, returning with her family to New York City when she was ten. Career She gave her first public performance in 1960 at the age of six, when she accompanied her mother on stage at the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Ten years later, at the age of 16, while a student at the New Lincoln School, Robinson made her professional performing debut when she joined the Broadway cast of the musical ''Hair''. Robinson remained with ''Hair'' for six weeks before moving to a new Broadway production, ''Soon'', whose cast included Peter Allen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harlem, New York
Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street (Manhattan), 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and 110th Street (Manhattan), Central Park North on the south. The greater Harlem area encompasses several other neighborhoods and extends west and north to 155th Street, east to the East River, and south to Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard (Manhattan), Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Central Park, and 96th Street (Manhattan), East 96th Street. Originally a Netherlands, Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Harlem's history has been defined by a series of economic boom-and-bust cycles, with significant population shifts accompanying each cycle. Harlem was predominantly occupied by Jewish American, Jewish and Italian American, Italian Americans in the 19th century, but African-American residents began to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Irene Cara
Irene Cara Escalera (March 18, 1959 – November 25, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and actress of Black, Puerto Rican and Cuban descent. Cara rose to prominence for her role as Coco Hernandez in the 1980 musical film '' Fame'', and for recording the film's title song " Fame", which reached 1 in several countries. In 1983, Cara co-wrote and sang the song " Flashdance... What a Feeling" (from the film ''Flashdance''), for which she shared an Academy Award for Best Original Song and won a Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1984. Before her success with ''Fame'', Cara portrayed the title character Sparkle Williams in the original 1976 musical drama film ''Sparkle''. Early life Cara was born and raised in the Bronx, New York City, the youngest of five children. Her father, Gaspar Cara, a steel factory worker and retired saxophonist, was Puerto Rican, and her mother, Louise Escalera, a movie theater usher, was Cuban. Cara had two sisters and two broth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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European American
European Americans (also referred to as Euro-Americans) are Americans of European ancestry. This term includes people who are descended from the first European settlers in the United States as well as people who are descended from more recent European arrivals. European Americans have been the largest panethnic group in the United States since about the 17th century. The Spaniards are thought to be the first Europeans to establish a continuous presence in what is now the contiguous United States, with Martín de Argüelles ( 1566) in St. Augustine, then a part of Spanish Florida, and the Russians were the first Europeans to settle in Alaska, establishing Russian America. The first English child born in the Americas was Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587. She was born in Roanoke Colony, located in present-day North Carolina, which was the first attempt, made by Queen Elizabeth I, to establish a permanent English settlement in North America. In the 2016 American Commun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of enslaved Africans who are from the United States. While some Black immigrants or their children may also come to identify as African-American, the majority of first generation immigrants do not, preferring to identify with their nation of origin. African Americans constitute the second largest racial group in the U.S. after White Americans, as well as the third largest ethnic group after Hispanic and Latino Americans. Most African Americans are descendants of enslaved people within the boundaries of the present United States. On average, African Americans are of West/ Central African with some European descent; some also have Native American and other ancestry. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, African immigrants generally do not s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Turn The Beat Around
"Turn the Beat Around" is a disco song written by Gerald Jackson and Peter Jackson, and performed by American actress and singer Vicki Sue Robinson in 1976 (see 1976 in music), originally appearing on her debut album, '' Never Gonna Let You Go'' (1976). Released as a single, the song went to #10 on the ''Billboard'' pop charts, and #73 on the ''Billboard'' soul chart. The song earned Robinson a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The track also went to number one on the ''Billboard'' disco chart for four weeks. "Turn the Beat Around" is considered a disco classic and is featured on many compilation albums. Background "Turn the Beat Around" was written by brothers Gerald and Peter Jackson of the R&B outfit Touch of Class. Peter Jackson knew Al Garrison, an engineer at Associated Studios in New York, through Jackson's work as a session drummer, and it was at Associated Studios that Touch of Class cut its own demos. Peter Jackson recalls that one Sunday at noon ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chart-topper
A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include record sales, the amount of radio airplay, the number of downloads, and the amount of streaming activity. Some charts are specific to a particular musical genre and most to a particular geographical location. The most common period covered by a chart is one week with the chart being printed or broadcast at the end of this time. Summary charts for years and decades are then calculated from their component weekly charts. Component charts have become an increasingly important way to measure the commercial success of individual songs. A common format of radio and television programmes is to run down a music chart. Chart hit A ''chart hit'' is a recording, identified by its inclusion in a chart that uses sales or other criteria to rank popular ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pop Music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. The terms ''popular music'' and ''pop music'' are often used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular and includes many disparate styles. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. ''Rock'' and ''pop'' music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which ''pop'' became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible. Although much of the music that appears on record charts is considered to be pop music, the genre is distinguished from chart music. Identifying factors usually include repeated choruses and hooks, short to medium-length songs written in a basic format (often the verse-chorus structure), and rhythms or tempos that can be easily danced to. Much pop music also borrows elements from other styles ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music and a subculture that emerged in the 1970s from the United States' urban nightlife scene. Its sound is typified by four-on-the-floor beats, syncopated basslines, string sections, brass and horns, electric piano, synthesizers, and electric rhythm guitars. Disco started as a mixture of music from venues popular with Italian Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans and Black Americans "'Broadly speaking, the typical New York discothèque DJ is young (between 18 and 30) and Italian,' journalist Vince Lettie declared in 1975. ..Remarkably, almost all of the important early DJs were of Italian extraction .. Italian Americans have played a significant role in America's dance music culture .. While Italian Americans mostly from Brooklyn largely created disco from scratch .." in Philadelphia and New York City during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Disco can be seen as a reaction by the 1960s counterculture to both the dominance of rock music ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Film
A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere through the use of moving images. These images are generally accompanied by sound and, more rarely, other sensory stimulations. The word "cinema", short for cinematography, is often used to refer to filmmaking and the film industry, and to the art form that is the result of it. Recording and transmission of film The moving images of a film are created by photography, photographing actual scenes with a movie camera, motion-picture camera, by photographing drawings or miniature models using traditional animation techniques, by means of computer-generated imagery, CGI and computer animation, or by a combination of some or all of these techniques, and other visual effects. Before the introduction of digital production, series of still imag ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Theatre
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music, and dance. Elements of art, such as painted scenery and stagecraft such as lighting are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience. The specific place of the performance is also named by the word "theatre" as derived from the Ancient Greek θέατρον (théatron, "a place for viewing"), itself from θεάομαι (theáomai, "to see", "to watch", "to observe"). Modern Western theatre comes, in large measure, from the theatre of ancient Greece, from which it borrows technical terminology, classification into genres, and many of its themes, stock characters, and plot elements. Theatre artist Patrice ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cyndi Lauper
Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper Thornton (born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. Her career has spanned over 40 years. Her album ''She's So Unusual'' (1983) was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on the Billboard Hot 100, ''Billboard'' Hot 100—"Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper song), Time After Time", "She Bop", and "All Through the Night (Cyndi Lauper song), All Through the Night"—earned Lauper the Grammy Award for Best New Artist, Best New Artist award at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the The Goonies: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, soundtrack for the motion picture ''The Goonies'' and her second record ''True Colors (Cyndi Lauper album), True Colors'' (1986). This album included the number one single "True Colors (Cyndi Lauper song), True Colors" and "Change of Heart (Cyndi Lauper song), Change of Heart", which peaked at number three. I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |