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Crooning
A crooner is a singer who performs with a smooth, intimate style that originated in the 1920s. The crooning style was made possible by better microphones that picked up quieter sounds and a wider range of frequencies, allowing the singer to access a greater dynamic range and exploit the proximity effect. This suggestion of intimacy was supposedly wildly attractive to women, especially a youth subculture known at the time as " bobby soxers". The crooning style developed among singers who performed with big bands, and reached its height in the 1940s to late 1960s. Crooning is epitomized by jazz vocalists of the era such as Bing Crosby, Rudy Vallee and Frank Sinatra, although Sinatra did not consider himself or Crosby to be "crooners". Other performers, such as Russ Columbo, also rejected the term. History This dominant popular vocal style coincided with the advent of radio broadcasting and electrical recording. Before the advent of the microphone, singers had to project to t ...
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Vaughn De Leath
Vaughn De Leath (September 26, 1894 – May 28, 1943) was an American female singer who gained popularity in the 1920s, earning the sobriquets "The Original Radio Girl" and the "First Lady of Radio." Although very popular in the 1920s, De Leath is obscure in modern times. De Leath was an early exponent, and often credited as inventor, of a style of vocalizing known as crooning. One of her hit songs, "Are You Lonesome Tonight?," recorded in 1927, achieved fame when it became a hit for Elvis Presley in 1960. Early life Born Leonore Vonderlieth in the town of Mount Pulaski, Illinois in 1894, her parents were George and Catherine Vonderlieth. At age 12, Leonore relocated to Los Angeles with her mother and sister, where she finished high school and studied music. While at Mills College, she began writing songs, but dropped out to pursue a singing career. She then adopted the stage name "Vaughn De Leath." Her vocals ranged from soprano to deep contralto. De Leath adapted to the emergi ...
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William Henry O'Connell
William Henry O'Connell (December 8, 1859 – April 22, 1944) was an American cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as Archbishop of Boston from 1907 until his death in 1944, and was made a cardinal in 1911. Early life William O'Connell was born on December 8, 1859, in Lowell, Massachusetts, to John and Bridget (née Farrelly) O'Connell, who were Irish immigrants. The youngest of eleven children, he had six brothers and four sisters. His father worked at a textile mill and died when William was four years old. During his high school career, he excelled at music, particularly the piano and organ. O'Connell entered St. Charles College in Ellicott City, Maryland, in 1876. At St. Charles, he was a pupil of the noted poet John Banister Tabb. He returned to Massachusetts two years later and entered Boston College, from which he graduated in 1881 with gold medals in philosophy, physics, and chemistry. He then furthered his studies at the Pontifical North American College in ...
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Art Gillham
Art Gillham (January 1, 1895, St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis, Missouri – June 6, 1961, Atlanta, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia) was an American songwriter who was among the first crooners, a pioneer radio artist, and a recording artist for Columbia Records. With Billy Smythe and Scott Middleton he wrote "Hesitation Blues", which he also recorded as one of the first sound recording, electrical recordings for Columbia Records(Rust). The song is heard in the following movies The Public Enemy, Of Human Bondage and Fireman Save My Child (IMDB). Gillham and Smythe wrote approximately 100 songs together, including "Mean Blues," "Just Forget," "The Deacon Told Me I Was Good," "Just Waiting for You," "Crying Again," "Things That Remind Me of You" (sheet music) and the first successful electrical recording, "You May Be Lonesome" (Rust). With J. Russell Robinson he wrote "In My Sweetheart's Arms". Radio pioneer As a song plugger for Ted Browne Music, Art Gillham traveled ...
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New York Singing Teachers Association
The New York Singing Teachers' Association (NYSTA) is an international educational association of singing teachers and affiliated voice professionals based in New York City. It was founded in 1906, and is the oldest such group based in the United States. The association provides worldwide training in the teaching of singing through local events, as well as educational media archives and a highly regarded professional development program available to members worldwide via its website, www.nyst.org History The NYSTA is the oldest association of its type in the United States. A group of singing teachers incorporated it in the state of New York on 27 November 1906 as the National Association of Teachers of Singing. The first annual meeting of the new organization was held on 7 January 1908, at Steinway Hall in New York City. The English music critic and voice teacher Herman Klein (1856–1934) was the first chairman. Founding members included Enrico Caruso, Emma Eames, Geraldine Farrar ...
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The Vagabond Lover
''The Vagabond Lover'' is a 1929 American pre-Code black-and-white musical comedy-drama film about a small-town boy who finds fame and romance when he joins a dance band. The film was directed by Marshall Neilan and is based on the novel of the same name written by James Ashmore Creelman, who also wrote the screenplay. It stars Rudy Vallee, in his first feature film, along with Sally Blane, Marie Dressler and Charles Sellon. The film premiered in New York City on November 26, 1929, and was released widely on December 1. A DVD version was released on March 29, 2005. ''The Vagabond Lover'' is an early example of a vehicle created for a popular music star, in a style echoed by later films such as '' Jailhouse Rock'' with Elvis Presley and '' A Hard Day's Night'' with the Beatles. Plot Rudy Bronson is a senior in a small college in the Midwest who completes a correspondence course in the saxophone given by the nationally known Ted Grant. Bronson and his friends form a band but ha ...
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Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977) was an American singer, comedian, entertainer and actor. The first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. Crosby was a leader in record sales, network radio ratings, and motion picture grosses from 1926 to 1977. He was one of the first global cultural icons. Crosby made over 70 feature films and recorded more than 1,600 songs. Crosby's early career coincided with recording innovations that allowed him to develop an intimate singing style that influenced many male singers who followed, such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Dean Martin, Dick Haymes, Elvis Presley, and John Lennon. Yank, the Army Weekly, ''Yank'' magazine said that Crosby was "the person who had done the most for the morale of overseas servicemen" during World War II. In 1948, American polls declared him the "most admired man alive", ahead of Jackie Robinson and Pope Pius XII. I ...
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Russ Columbo
Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolfo Colombo (January 14, 1908 – September 2, 1934), known as Russ Columbo, was an American baritone, songwriter, violinist, and actor. He is famous for romantic ballads such as his signature tune "You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love" and his own compositions "Prisoner of Love (1931 song), Prisoner of Love" and "Too Beautiful for Words". Early life Columbo was born in Camden, New Jersey, the twelfth child of Italian immigrant parents Nicola and Giulia "Julia" Colombo. He attended Everett Grammar School and started playing the violin at a very young age, debuting professionally at the age of 13. His family moved to Los Angeles when he was 16, and he attended Belmont High School there. He left high school at age 17 to study violin under Calmon Luboviski and travel with various bands around the country. He sang and played violin in numerous nightclubs. Career Films By 1928, at the age of 20, Columbo began to participate in motion pictures, includi ...
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Ian Whitcomb
Ian Timothy Whitcomb (10 July 1941 – 19 April 2020) was an English entertainer, singer-songwriter, record producer, writer, broadcaster and actor. As part of the British Invasion, his hit song " You Turn Me On" reached number 8 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in 1965. He wrote several books on popular music, beginning with '' After the Ball'', published by Penguin Books (Britain) and Simon & Schuster (United States) in 1972. He accompanied his singing by playing the ukulele and, through his records, concerts, and film work, helped to stimulate the revival of interest in the instrument. His re-creation of the music played aboard the in the film of that name won a Grammy Award in 1998 for package design and a nomination for Whitcomb's liner notes (''Titanic: Music as Heard on the Fateful Voyage''). Early life Whitcomb was born in Woking, Surrey, England to Patrick and Eileen (née Burningham). He was the second child of three children. He spent his childhood years in ...
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Perry Como, New York, Ca
Perry or pear cider is an alcoholic beverage made from fermented pears, traditionally in England (particularly Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, and Worcestershire), parts of South Wales, France (especially Normandy and Anjou), Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. There is growing interest in artisanal perry production in the fruit-growing regions of the northwest United States. Perry typically has an alcohol content ranging from 5% to 9% ABV. Production Fruit The pears used to make perry are typically not the large, sweet varieties eaten as fresh fruit. Perry pears tend to be small and relatively the distinction between table pears and perry pears is similar to the distinction between table apples and cider apples. Perry pears are thought to be descended from wild hybrids, known as ''wildings'', between the cultivated pear ''Pyrus communis'' subsp. ''communis'' and the now-rare wild pear ''Pyrus communis'' subsp. ''pyraster''. The cultivated pear ''P. communis'' was brought to ...
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Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeastern United States. It has an area of and a population of 675,647 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the third-largest city in the Northeastern United States after New York City and Philadelphia. The larger Greater Boston metropolitan statistical area has a population of 4.9 million as of 2023, making it the largest metropolitan area in New England and the Metropolitan statistical area, eleventh-largest in the United States. Boston was founded on Shawmut Peninsula in 1630 by English Puritans, Puritan settlers, who named the city after the market town of Boston, Lincolnshire in England. During the American Revolution and American Revolutionary War, Revolutionary War, Boston was home to several seminal events, incl ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ...
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Mah Jongg
Mahjong (English pronunciation: ; also transliterated as mah jongg, mah-jongg, and mahjongg) is a tile-based game that was developed in the 19th century in China and has spread throughout the world since the early 20th century. It is played by four players (with some three-player variations found in parts of China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia). The game and its regional variants are widely played throughout East Asia, East and Southeast Asia and have also become popular in Western countries. The game has also been adapted into a widespread online entertainment. Similar to the Western card game rummy, mahjong is a game of skill, strategy, and luck. To distinguish it from mahjong solitaire, it is sometimes referred to as mahjong rummy. The game is played with a set of 144 Mahjong tiles, tiles based on Chinese characters and Chinese culture, symbols, although many regional variations may omit some tiles or add unique ones. In most variations, each player beg ...
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