WA2K Radio is now on the air

Raggedy, I cannot believe how many autographs your daughter must have by now, honey.

Ah, Let's listen to it anyway, dear heart.


Dear heart wish you were here to warm this night
My dear heart, seems like a year since you've been out of my sight
A single room, a table for one
It's a lonesome town all right
But soon I'll kiss you hello at our front door
And dear heart I want you to know
I'll leave your arms never more

(A single room, a table for one)
It's a lonesome town all right
But soon I'll kiss you hello at our front door
And dear heart I want you to know
I'll leave your arms never more.

That version by Jack Jones. I wonder if Johnny Mercer wrote that song?

Jack Jones didn't make me cry, Letty. Only when Al Martino does it, or at the closing credits of the movie "Dear Heart", a really fun movie with Glenn Ford, Angela Lansbury and Geraldine Page. Henry Mancini wrote it for the movie.

Only a few autographs, Letty. It's just coincidence, that the few my daughter has are of personalities that have been discussed at WA2K - the station that features the best.

Well, gal. I didn't see the movie, and I really don't know where I heard that song, frankly. I guess it must have been on this radio.

It's dark here, folks, and while searching for one thing, I found another.


DYNAMIX presents INDA MATRIX "Bodyfly"
[ Written by Beppe Savoni & Eddie Cumana ]


where are you tonight?
Now my mind is craving
Energy to fly through a darker side of love
(Never lets me fall)

Where are you tonight?
Are you still the one who brought me to the light?
There is nothing else to know…
Now my words are gone

make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly reach for the sky-y -y (2)

needing you tonight
as I am walking through the desert of your eyes
let addiction be my rope to get away from here

come to me tonight
now my body is craving power to survive to make sorrow disappear and drift in ecstasy

make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly reach for the sky-y -y (2)

hooooooooooo-yea
pick my body up
take me up-fly-y-y-y
pick my body up
take me up
pick my body up
take me up
fly highhhhher
make me take me take me take my body up
take my body up
my body up
take my up
Yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea-yea
reach for the sky-y -y

make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly bodyfly fly high
make my bodyfly-fly reach for the sky-y -y
take my body up my my body up
pick me up and make my bodyfly

(adlibs)
take me to the sky
(lift me up)
take me to the sky
(fly high)
take me to the sky

I think it might have been when I was looking for a samba that our piano man used to play called "Cumana."

Weird

Ed Asner
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Edward "Ed" Asner (born November 15, 1929) is an American actor best known for his Emmy-winning role as Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and later continued in a spinoff series, Lou Grant.



Biography

Mr. Asner was born in Kansas City, Kansas to Lizzie and Morris David Asner. He is internationally known as the slaver Captain Davies, from the mini-series Roots, who kidnapped Kunta Kinte into bondage. While Asner's character in Roots was highly developed, full of metaphors on tortured ethics and the morality of slavery, biographer Alex Haley would later admit he had no idea who the actual Captain was who had commanded the historic slaver which had kidnapped his ancestor.

Asner has also had an extensive voice acting career. He provided the voices for J. Jonah Jameson on the 1990s animated television series Spider-Man, Hudson on Gargoyles, Jabba the Hutt on the radio version of Star Wars, Master Vrook from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and its sequel, Roland Daggett on Batman: The Animated Series, Cosgrove on Freakazoid, and Ed Wuncler on The Boondocks. In 1993, he narrated the short documentary Legacy for Efrain, which explores the impact of the nonprofit world hunger organization Heifer International.

Mr. Asner has four children: a son, Matthew and his twin sister Liza, a daughter, Kate, and a younger son, Charlie. Model and television personality Jules Asner is his former daughter-in-law.

His wife's nephew, Gavin Newsom, was elected mayor of San Francisco in 2003.

Dr. Jerry Pournelle has mentioned in his weblog [1] that Mr. Asner lives nearby, having encountered him while both were on neighborhood walks, and describes him as "a good neighbor."


Views

A vocal leftist, Asner served two terms as president of the Screen Actors Guild, in which capacity he opposed US policy in Central America. He has also been active in a variety of other causes, such as the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and is a prominent member of the Democratic Socialists of America. His political position may also have motivated him to play the voice of the pig-like villain Hoggish Greedly on the pro-environmental animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers [2] and the voice for the sinister Ed Wuncler in The Boondocks.

He has signed the 911 Truth Statement [3] calling for new investigations of questions about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including those concerning US intelligence on upcoming attacks, the breakdown of military air defense, and the nature of the investigations. Asner has also reviewed 9/11 literature and videos, including a recent review for the film 9/11 Guilt: The Proof is in Your Hands. He's also appeared several times on Joyce Riley's The Power Hour.

Asner served as the spokesman for 2004 Racism Watch. In April 2004, he wrote an open letter to "peace and justice leaders" encouraging them to demand "full 9-11 truth" through an organization called the "9-11 Visibility Project." Recently he has appeared in a recurring segment, on Jay Leno's The Tonight Show, entitled "Does This Impress Ed Asner?"

Asner also narrated the documentary film "the Oil factor: Behind the War on Terror".

Beverly D'Angelo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Beverly D'Angelo (born November 15, 1951 in Columbus, Ohio) is an American singer and actress. [1]

After gaining minor roles in movies including Annie Hall, D'Angelo had a string of hit movies in the late 1970s, appearing in Every Which Way But Loose, Hair, and Coal Miner's Daughter (she portrayed the singer Patsy Cline, and did all her own singing). Her biggest break came with Chevy Chase in the 1983 National Lampoon film Vacation. Her role as Ellen Griswold was reprised in three Vacation sequels from 1985 through 1997. In 1992, she had a guest appearance in the third season of The Simpsons as Lurleen Lumpkin, a singing waitress, in Colonel Homer.

After the end of her romance with film director Miloš Forman, in 1981, D'Angelo married Lorenzo Salviati, an economics student who also was an Italian duke; half-Polish, he is a descendant of Lorenzo de Medici. Separated in 1983, D'Angelo and Salviati finally divorced in 1995.

From 1985 until 1991, D'Angelo, although still married to the Duke, lived with Irish director Neil Jordan. During this time she had a small role in his 1988 comedy High Spirits, as well as the operatic film Aria (1987) in which she played Gilda in the Rigoletto scene (music by Verdi). Later she began a relationship with Anton Furst, an Academy award-winning production designer, who committed suicide in 1991 after they broke up.

In 1997, D'Angelo became involved with Al Pacino. They are the parents of twins Olivia and Anton, who were born in 2001. The couple broke up soon after the children's birth and have battled over their custody ever since.

She can now be seen on the hit HBO series Entourage, playing the role of the alpha-female Barbara "Babs" Miller.

1. SO MANY MEN, SO FEW WHO CAN AFFORD ME.

2. GOD MADE US SISTERS; PROZAC MADE US FRIENDS.

3. IF THEY DON'T HAVE CHOCOLATE IN HEAVEN,
I AIN'T GOING.

4. MY MOTHER IS A TRAVEL AGENT FOR GUILT TRIPS.

5. PRINCESS, HAVING HAD SUFFICIENT EXPERIENCE
WITH PRINCES, SEEKS FROG.

6. COFFEE, CHOCOLATE, MEN...
SOME THINGS ARE JUST BETTER RICH.

7. DON'T TREAT ME ANY DIFFERENTLY
THAN YOU WOULD THE QUEEN.


8. IF YOU WANT BREAKFAST IN BED, SLEEP IN THE KITCHEN.

9. DINNER IS READY WHEN THE SMOKE ALARM GOES OFF.

10. I'M OUT OF ESTROGEN-AND I HAVE A GUN.

11. GUYS HAVE FEELINGS TOO. BUT LIKE...WHO CARES?

12. NEXT MOOD SWING: 6 MINUTES.

13. AND YOUR POINT IS...?

14. WARNING: I HAVE AN ATTITUDE
AND I KNOW HOW TO USE IT.

15. OF COURSE I DON'T LOOK BUSY...
I DID IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.


16. DO NOT START WITH ME. YOU WILL NOT WIN.

17. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT,
SO PLEASE SHUT UP.

18. ALL STRESSED OUT AND NO ONE TO CHOKE.

19. I'M ONE OF THOSE BAD THINGS
THAT HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.

20. HOW CAN I MISS YOU IF YOU WON'T GO AWAY?

21. SORRY IF I LOOKED INTERESTED. I'M NOT.

23. IF WE ARE WHAT WE EAT, I'M FAST, CHEAP AND EASY.

24. DON'T UPSET ME!
I'M RUNNING OUT OF PLACES TO HIDE THE BODIES.

Great one-liners, Bob.

Good morning WA2K listeners and contributors. Alway enjoy hearing the hawk tout his celeb's background. Interesting what we learn here on our cyber radio, no?

When our Raggedy arrives, I would like to comment further, but I became preoccupied with vanishing dialects in both the U.S. and abroad.

This song mirrors that contemplation:


Come let's go play together in the bright sunny weather.
Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island.
Gullah, Gullah, Gullah, Gullah

Lots to see and to do there. All we need now is you there.
Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island Gullah, Gullah Island.
Gullah, Gullah, Gullah, Gullah

Just put your foot in your hand. That means hurry up.
Don't miss the good things that we've planned.

So come let's go play together in the bright sunny weather.
Lets all go to Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island.
Thanks to Andrae M.
RIGHT: The South Carolina sea islands of the Gullah.

Come let's go play together in the bright sunny weather.
Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island.
Gullah, Gullah, Gullah, Gullah

Lots to see and to do there. All we need now is you there.
Lets all go to Gullah, Gullah Island Gullah, Gullah Island.
Gullah, Gullah, Gullah, Gullah

Just put your foot in your hand. That means hurry up.
Don't miss the good things that we've planned.

So come let's go play together in the bright sunny weather.
Let's all go to Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island, Gullah, Gullah Island.

Thanks to Andrae M.
RIGHT: The South Carolina sea islands of the Gullah.

and, folks, the background:



Gullah is a creole form of English, indigenous to the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia (the area extends from Georgetown, SC to the Golden Isles of Georgia above Florida). Like all creoles, Gullah began as a pidgin language, transforming into a language in its own right with the first generation born in America. A similar form of plantation creole may have been widespread at one time in the southern United States, but Gullah now differs from other African-American dialects of English (which do not vary greatly from the standard syntax, pronunciation and vocabulary). Though creole languages the world over share a surprisingly similar structure, the speakers of one creole can seldom understand speakers of another on first contact.

According to David Crystal in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, the word "comes from Portuguese crioulo and originally meant a person of European descent who had been born and brought up in a colonial territory. Later, it came to be applied to other people who were native to these areas, and then to the kind of language they spoke." Creole languages have been spoken on every inhabited continent, and are "English based," "French based" - even "Romany based" like Sheldru, used by Gypsies in England. Krio, spoken in Sierra Leone, is just one example of an English-based creole with many similarities to Gullah -- the creole language of the Sea Islands.

Good morning WA2K.
I'm not going to Gullah Gullah Island, but I've just put my foot in my hand so I can post some pretty pictures this morning.

Good morning, have you seen the weather, it's…

Fire & Rain
James Taylor Lyrics

Just yesterday morning they let me know you were gone
Susanne the plans they made put an end to you
I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song
I just can't remember who to send it to

I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that Id see you again

Wont you look down upon me, Jesus
You've got to help me make a stand
You've just got to see me through another day
My body's aching and my time is at hand
And I wont make it any other way

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that Id see you again

Been walking my mind to an easy time my back turned towards the sun
Lord knows when the cold wind blows it will turn your head around
Well, there's hours of time on the telephone line to talk about things
To come
Sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground

Oh, I've seen fire and I've seen rain
I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that Id see you, baby, one more time again, now

Thought Id see you one more time again
There's just a few things coming my way this time around, now
Thought Id see you, thought Id see you fire and rain, now

Well, folks, there's our Raggedy with her great photo's. She of the foot in hand, and I of the foot in mouth.

There's Ed, Pet, and Bev. Know 'em all, right listeners?

Try, I love to see you with James as well, honey. Love that song, of course.

Let's hear a companion piece by Robert.

Fire And Ice


Some say the world will end in fire;
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

My goodnight song:

We'll Be Together Again Lyrics
by Rod Stewart

No tears
No fears
Remember there's always tomorrow
So what if we have to part
We'll be together again

Your kiss
Your smile
Are memories I'll treasure forever
So try thinking with your heart
We'll be together again

Times when I know you'll be lonesome
Times when I know you'll be sad
Don't let temptation surround you
Don't let the blues make you bad

Some day
Some way
We both have a lifetime before us
For parting is never goodbye
We'll be together again.

Times when I know you'll be lonesome
Times when I know you'll be sad
Don't let temptation surround you
Don't let the blues make you bad

Some day
Some way
We both have a lifetime before us
For parting is not goodbye
We'll be together again.

From Letty with love

Donovan


Thrown like a star in my vast sleep
I open my eyes to take a peep
To find that I was by the sea
Gazing with tranquillity.
'Twas then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Came singing songs of love,
Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Came singing songs of love.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity.
'Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Comes singing songs of love,
Then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Comes singing songs of love.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang.
Here comes the roly poly man and he's singing songs of love,
Roly poly, roly poly, roly poly, poly he sang.
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang,
Hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, hurdy gurdy, gurdy he sang?

W. C. Handy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



William Christopher Handy (November 16, 1873 - March 28, 1958) was an African American blues composer and musician, often known as "the Father of the Blues."

W. C. Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the style of music that is distinctively American, he is credited with its invention not only because he was formally educated and able to notate his music for publication and hence, posterity, but because of syncopated rhythms, a style unique to his music.

While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from an obscure regional music style to one of the dominant forces in American music.

Handy was an educated musician who used folk material in his compositions. He was scrupulous in documenting the sources of his works, which frequently combined stylistic influences from several performers. He loved this simple early music and brought his own transforming touch to it.



Early life

Handy was born in Florence, Alabama to freed slaves, Charles Bernard Handy and Elizabeth Bewer Handy. His father was pastor of a small charge in Guntersville, Alabama, another small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal minister after emancipation.

Handy was a deeply religious man, whose influences in his musical style were found in the church music he sang and played as a youth, and in the sounds of nature in his hometown, Florence, Alabama.

He cited the sounds of nature, such as "whippoorwills, bats and hoot owls and their outlandish noises", the sounds of Cypress Creek washing on the fringes of the woodland, and "the music of every songbird and all the symphonies of their unpremeditated art" as inspiration.

Growing up he apprenticed in carpentry, shoemaking and plastering, and bought his first guitar that he had seen in a local shop window and had secretly saved for by picking berries, nuts and making lye soap, without his parents' permission. His father, dismayed at his actions, asked him, "What possessed you to bring a sinful thing like that into our Christian home?" He then ordered him to "Take it back where it came from", and enrolled him in organ lessons. His days as an organ student were short lived, and he moved on to learn the cornet.


Musical and social development

Handy joined a local blues band as a teenager, but he kept this fact a secret from his parents. He purchased a cornet from a fellow bandmember and spent every free minute practicing it. An exceptional student in school, he placed near the top of his class. In September of 1892, Handy traveled to Birmingham, Alabama to take a teaching exam, which he passed easily. He obtained a teaching job in Birmingham but soon learned that the teaching profession paid poorly. He quit the position and found work at a pipe works plant in nearby Bessemer.

During his off-time, he organized a small string orchestra and taught musicians how to read notes. He formed a quartet called the "Lauzetta Quartet". When the group read about the upcoming World's Fair in Chicago, they decided to attend. The trip to Chicago was long and arduous. To pay their way, group members performed at odd jobs along the way. They finally arrived in Chicago only to learn that the World's Fair had been postponed for a year. The group then headed to St. Louis but working conditions there proved to be very bad. The Laurzetta Quartet disbanded and Handy subsequently left St. Louis for Evansville, Indiana.

In Evansville, Handy's luck changed dramatically. He joined a successful band which performed throughout the neighboring cities and states. While performing at a barbecue in Henderson, Kentucky, he met Elizabeth Price, and they married shortly afterwards (on July 19, 1896). Henderson

His musical endeavors were varied, and he sang first tenor in a minstrel show, moved from Alabama and worked as a band director, choral director, cornetist and trumpeter. At age 23, he was band master of Mahara's Colored Minstrels.


As a young man, he was playing cornet in the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, and in 1902 he travelled throughout Mississippi listening to various musical styles played by ordinary Negroes. The instruments most often used in many of those songs were the guitar, banjo and to a much lesser extent, the piano. His remarkable memory served him well, and he was able to recall and transcribe the music he heard in his travels.

Shortly after his marriage to Elizabeth Price in 1896, he was invited to join a minstrel group called "Mahara's Minstrels." In their three year tour, they travelled to Chicago, Illinois, throughout Texas and Oklahoma, through Tennessee, Georgia and Florida on to Cuba and was paid a salary of $6 per week. Upon their return from their Cuban engagements, they travelled north through Alabama, and stopped to perform in Huntsville, Alabama. Growing weary from life on the road, it was there he and his wife decided to stay with relatives in his nearby hometown of Florence.

On June 29, 1900 in Florence, Elizabeth gave birth to the first of their six children (a daughter, Lucille). Around that time, William Hooper Councill, President of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes in Normal, Alabama (a small community just outside Huntsville) approached Handy about teaching music. At the time, AAMC was the only college for Negroes in Alabama. Handy accepted Councill's offer and became a faculty member that September. He taught music there from 1900 to 1902 which is today named Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University.

An important factor in his musical development and in music history, was his enthusiasm for the distinctive style of uniquely American music which was often considered inferior to European classical music. He was soon disheartened to discover that American music was often cast aside by the college and instead emphasized inferior foreign music considered to be "classical". Handy felt he was underpaid and felt he could make more money touring with a minstrel group and after a dispute with AAMC President Councill, he resigned his teaching position to rejoin the Mahara Minstrels to tour the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 1903 he was offered the opportunity to direct a Black band named the Knights of Pythias, located in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Handy accepted and remained there six years.


Transition: popularity, fame and business

In 1909 he and his band moved to Memphis, Tennessee and established their presence on Beale Street. At that time, American society and culture was distinctively segregated and Handy's observations of Whites responses to native Black music in conjunction with his own observations of his habits, attitudes and music of his ethnicity served as the foundation for what was later to become the style of music popularized as "the Blues."

The genesis of his "Memphis Blues" was as a campaign tune originally entitled as "Mr. Crump" which he had written for Edward Crump, a successful Memphis, Tennessee mayoral candidate in 1909 (and future "boss"). He later rewrote the tune and changed the name to "Memphis Blues."

The 1912 publication of his "Memphis Blues" sheet music introduced his style of 12-bar blues to many households, and was credited as the inspiration for the invention of the foxtrot dance step by Vernon and Irene Castle, a New York-based dance team. Some consider it to be the first blues song. He sold the rights to the song for $100, and by 1914, at age 40, his musical style was asserted, his popularity increased significantly, and he composed prolifically.


Because of the difficulty of getting his works published, he published many of his own works, and in 1917, he and his business moved to New York City. By the end of that year, his most successful songs, "Memphis Blues", "Beale Street Blues", and "St. Louis Blues" had been published. The Original Dixieland Jazz Band, a white New Orleans jazz ensemble, had recorded the very first jazz record that year, introducing jazz music to a wide segment of the American public. Handy initially had little fondness for this new "jazz" music, but jazz bands dove into the repertoire of W. C. Handy compositions with enthusiasm, making many of them jazz standards.

Handy's foray into publishing was noteworthy for several reasons. Not only were his works groundbreaking because of his ethnicity, but he was among the first blacks who were successful because of it. The rejection of his manuscripts for publication led him to self-publish his works. In 1912, Handy met Harry H. Pace at the Solvent Savings Bank in Memphis. Pace was valedictorian of his graduating class at Atlanta University and student of W.E.B. DuBois. By the time of their meeting, Pace had already demonstrated a strong understanding of business and earned his business reputation by rebuilding failing businesses. Handy liked him, and he later became manager of Pace and Handy Sheet Music.

In 1920, frustrated at white publishing companies that would buy their music and lyrics and record them using white artists, Pace amicably dissolved his long standing partnership with Handy, with whom he also collaborated as lyricist, and resolved to start his own record firm which he later named Black Swan Records.

For years, scholars thought Handy was a founder of Black Swan Records. However, Handy wrote, "To add to my woes, my partner withdrew from the business. He disagreed with some of my business methods, but no harsh words were involved. He simply chose this time to sever connection with our firm in order that he might organized Pace Phonograph Company, issuing Black Swan Records and making a serious bid for the Negro market. . . . With Pace went a large number of our employees. . . . Still more confusion and anguish grew out of the fact that people did not generally know that I had no stake in the Black Swan Record Company."

Although Handy's partnership with Pace was dissolved, he continued to operate the publishing company as a family-owned business, and published other works of other black composers as well as his own, which included more than 150 sacred compositions and folk song arrangements and about sixty blues compositions.

In the 1920s, he founded the Handy Record Company in New York City.

Bessie Smith's January 14, 1925 Columbia Records recording of "St. Louis Blues" with Louis Armstrong is considered by many to be one of the finest recordings of the 1920s.

In 1926 he authored and edited a work entitled Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs, which is probably the first work of its type which attempted to record, analyze and describe the blues as an integral part of the U. S. South and the history of the United States.

So successful was Handy's "St. Louis Blues" that in 1929, he and director Kenneth W. Adams collaborated on a RCA motion picture project of the same name which was to be shown before the main attraction. Handy suggested Blues singer Bessie Smith be placed in the starring role since she had gained widespread popularity with that tune. The picture was shot in June and was shown in movie houses throughout the United States from 1929 to 1932.

The genre of the blues was a hallmark of American society and culture in the 1920s and 1930s. So much so was its influence and Handy's hallmark, that author F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in his novel The Great Gatsby that, "All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the "Beale Street Blues" while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust. At the gray tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low, sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor."


Later life

Following publication of his autobiography, Handy published a subsequent book on African American musicians entitled Unsung Americans Sing, which was published in 1944. He wrote a total of five books:

Blues: An Anthology: Complete Words and Music of 53 Great Songs
Book of Negro Spirituals
Father of the Blues: An Autobiography
Unsung Americans Sing
Negro Authors and Composers of the United States

In this time period, he lived on Strivers' Row in Harlem. An accidental fall from a subway platform in 1943 resulted in his blindness. Following the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1954 at age 80 to his secretary Irma Louise Logan, who he frequently said had become his eyes.

In 1955 he suffered a stroke and became confined to a wheelchair. Over 800 people attended his 84th birthday party at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

On March 28, 1958, W. C. Handy succumbed to acute bronchial pneumonia and died. Over 25,000 people attended his funeral in Harlem's Abyssinian Baptist Church. Over 150,000 people gathered in the streets near the church to pay their respects to one of the worlds greatest musicians and songwriters.

He is buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Bronx, New York.

Handy had a house in Memphis, Tennessee.


Compositions

Handy's songs don't always follow the classic 12-bar pattern, often having 8- or 16-bar bridges between 12-bar verses.

"Memphis Blues", written 1909, published 1912. Although usually subtitled "Boss Crump", it is a distinct song from Handy's campaign satire, "Boss Crump don't 'low no easy riders around here", which was based on the good-time song "Mamma Don't Allow It."
"St. Louis Blues" (1912), "the jazzman's Hamlet."
"Yellow Dog Blues" (1912), "Your easy rider's gone where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog." The reference is to the Southern Railway and the local Yazoo Delta Railroad, called the Yellow Dog.
"Loveless Love", based in part on the classic, "Careless Love". Possibly the first song to complain of modern synthetics, "with milkless milk and silkless silk, we're growing used to soulless soul."
"Aunt Hagar's Blues", the biblical Hagar, handmaiden to Abraham and Sarah, was considered the "mother" of the African Americans.
"Beale Street Blues" (1916), written as a farewell to the old Beale Street of Memphis (actually called Beale Avenue until the song changed the name); but Beale Street did not go away and is considered the "home of the blues" to this day. B.B. King was known as the "Beale Street Blues Boy" and Elvis Presley watched and learned from Ike Turner there.
"Long Gone John (From Bowling Green)", rap-style tribute to a famous bank robber.
"Chantez-Les-Bas (Sing 'Em Low)", tribute to the Creole culture of New Orleans.
"Atlanta Blues", includes the song known as "Make Me a Pallet on your Floor" as its chorus.

Performances, honors, recognition, miscellany

On April 27, 1928 he performed a program of jazz, blues, plantation songs, work songs, piano solos, spirituals and a Negro rhapsody in Carnegie Hall.
In 1938 he performed at the National Folk Festival in Washington, DC, his first national performance on a desegregated stage.
He performed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and 1934 and the New York World's Fair in 1939 and 1940.
In 1940, NBC broadcast an All-Handy program.
In 1958, a movie about his life - appropriately entitled St. Louis Blues - was released.
On May 17, 1969, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp in his honor.
He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1983.
He is referenced in the 1991 single Walking in Memphis, covered by Lonestar, Cher, and other artists.
He received a Grammy Trustees Award for his lifetime achievements in 1993.
He was also a 1993 Inductee into the Alabama Music Hall of Fame with the Lifework Award for Performing Achievement.
Citing 2003 as "the centennial anniversary of when W.C. Handy composed the first Blues music..." the United States Senate in 2002 passed a resolution declaring the year beginning February 1, 2003 as the "Year of the Blues."
Each November 16, Mr. Handy's birthday is celebrated with free music, birthday cake and free admission to the W.C. Handy Museum in Florence, Alabama. The hand-hewn log cabin made by his grandfather is his birthplace and museum.
An autographed 1937 photo from W.C. Handy to Anton Lada of Lada's Louisiana Orchestra sold for $850 in 2006.

Awards, festivals and memorials

The W. C. Handy Award was the most prestigious award for blues artists. It was renamed "The Blues Music Awards." for 2006.
The W. C. Handy Music Festival is held annually in the Shoals area of Florence, Alabama. Previous week-long festivals have featured jazz and blues legends including Jimmy Smith, Ramsey Lewis, Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby Blue Bland, Diane Schuur, Billy Taylor, Dianne Reeves and Charlie Byrd.
W. C. Handy Park is a city park located on Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. The park contains a life-sized bronze statue of Handy.
The W.C. Handy Blues & Barbeque Festivalis a week-long musical event that features blues and Zydeco bands from across the U.S and is held every June on the banks of the Ohio River in downtown Henderson, Kentucky.

Burgess Meredith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 - September 9, 1997) was a versatile American actor who played Rocky Balboa's trainer "Mickey" in the Rocky films and the Penguin in the television series Batman.

Birth and early career

Meredith was born in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1933, he became a member of Eva Le Gallienne's theatre company in New York. He attracted favorable attention for playing George in a 1939 adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men and as war correspondent Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). He was featured in many 1940s films, including three (Second Chorus (1940), Diary of a Chambermaid (1946) and On Our Merry Way (1948) ) co-starring then-wife Paulette Goddard. Among later roles, he became known for playing The Penguin on the television series Batman. The Penguin's trademark quacking laugh was actually Meredith's attempt to cover up coughing fits, as his part required him to smoke, something he had not done in years. He admitted in an interview it sounded more like a duck than a penguin. [citation needed] Nevertheless, his role as the Penguin was so well-received that the show's writers always had a script featuring the Penguin ready whenever Meredith was available. He appeared on the show more times during its run than any other villain.

Meredith served in the United States Army Air Forces in World War II, reaching the rank of captain. As a result of the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into Communist influence in Hollywood, Meredith was placed on the Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s.


Breadth of acting

Burgess Meredith was adept playing both dramatic and comedy roles, and appeared in four different starring roles in the acclaimed anthology TV series The Twilight Zone; only Jack Klugman had as many leading guest appearances. In the famous "Time Enough at Last", a 1959 episode of The Twilight Zone, Meredith plays a henpecked bank teller who only wants to be left alone with his books. In the 1961 episode "Mr. Dingle, the Strong", Meredith plays the title character, a timid weakling who, as the subject of a space alien's experiment on human nature, suddenly acquires superhuman strength. In "Printer's Devil," Meredith portrayed the Devil himself, and in "The Obsolete Man" he portrayed a deeply religious man, sentenced to death in a future, dystopic totalitarian society.


Meredith achieved iconic status for playing The Penguin in the television series Batman.

In 1972 - 1973, Meredith played V.C.R. Cameron, director of "Probe Control," in the movie "Probe" and then in "Search," the subsequent TV series (the name was changed to avoid conflict with a program on PBS). The series involved "World Securities Corporation," a private agency which, among other activities, fielded a number of detectives equipped with high-tech equipment including a tiny TV transmitter (the "Scanner") which allowed Probe Control to see what was going on where the agents were working. One episode centered around Cameron being kidnapped and having to escape from a torture chamber, without any of the tools carried by Probe agents.


Movie roles of note

Meredith was a favorite of director Otto Preminger, who cast him in Advise and Consent (1962), In Harm's Way (1965), Hurry Sundown (1967), Skidoo (1968) and Such Good Friends (1971). He also played Rocky Balboa's trainer, Mickey, in the first three Rocky films (1976), (1979) and (1982), to great acclaim. His character Mickey died in the third Rocky film but returned briefly for the fifth film Rocky V (1990) in flashbacks. Meredith also appeared in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985). In his twilight years, he played Jack Lemmon's character's father in Grumpy Old Men (1993) and its sequel, Grumpier Old Men (1995). He was the Penguin in the original Batman Movie. As a nod to his longtime association with The Twilight Zone, he served as narrator for the 1983 film based on the series. He was Academy Award-nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his roles in The Day of the Locust (1975) and Rocky (1976).


Additional roles of note

A somewhat more mixed (comedy/dramatic) role was his portrayal of the philosophical (yet hapless) tramp, Vladimir, in a notable production of Beckett's Waiting for Godot.

Meredith also did voice over work mostly in the 1970's, supplying the voice over in TV commercials for Stokley Vegetables, United Airlines, and Freakies cereal; as well as supplying the narration for the 1974-1975 ABC Saturday morning series Korg: 70,000 B.C. and supplying the voice of Puff in the 1978 animated TV special adaptation of the Peter, Paul, and Mary song Puff, The Magic Dragon.


Death

Meredith died of Alzheimer's disease and melanoma in 1997 at the age of 89. Coincidentally, his character died in his final movie, Grumpier Old Men.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Burgess Meredith has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6904 Hollywood Blvd.

His autobiography So Far, So Good was published in 1994.

Diana Krall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC (born November 16, 1964) is a Grammy Award Winning Jazz pianist and singer.


Biography

Krall was born into a musical family in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada. She began learning the piano at age four. During her youth the family moved to Vancouver. In high school, she started playing in a small jazz group. At the age of fifteen, she started playing regularly in several Nanaimo restaurants.

At age seventeen she won a scholarship from the Vancouver International Jazz Festival to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and completed three terms.

In Nanaimo her playing attracted the attention of famed bass player Ray Brown (ex-husband of the late Ella Fitzgerald). After hearing her play, he persuaded Krall to move to Los Angeles, and study with pianist Jimmy Rowles, with whom she began to sing. This also brought her into contact with influential teachers and producers. In 1990, Krall relocated to New York.

Diana Krall and British musician Elvis Costello married in December 2003. They are expecting twins, their first children together, in December 2006.


Professional career

In 1993, Krall released her first album, Stepping Out, which she recorded with John Clayton and Jeff Hamilton. It caught the attention of producer Tommy LiPuma, who produced her second album, Only Trust Your Heart (1995).

Her third, All for You: A Dedication to the Nat King Cole Trio (1996), was nominated for a Grammy and continued for 70 weeks in the Billboard jazz charts. Love Scenes (1997) quickly became a hit record with the trio of Krall, Russell Malone (guitar) and Christian McBride (bass).

In August 2000, Ms. Krall was paired on a 20-city tour with Tony Bennett.

Orchestral arrangements by Johnny Mandel provided the background on When I Look In Your Eyes (1999); more Grammy nominations came along, and she was rewarded as Best Jazz Musician of the Year. The band mix was kept, following arrangements on The Look of Love (2001) created by Claus Ogerman; this record achieved platinum status and reached the top 10 of the Billboard 200. The Look of Love went to number one on the Canadian album charts and went quadruple platinum in that country. The title track from the album, a cover of the Casino Royale standard popularized in the late 1960s by Dusty Springfield and Sergio Mendes, reached number 22 on the adult contemporary chart.

In September 2001, Krall began a world tour. Her concert at the "Paris Olympia" was recorded and released as her first live record. Diana Krall - Live in Paris topped the Billboard jazz charts, went top 20 on the Billboard 200 and went top 5 in Canada. It garnered her second Grammy (Best Vocal Jazz Record) and a Juno Award. The album included covers of Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are" (a hit on U.S. smooth jazz radio) and Joni Mitchell's "A Case Of You."

After getting married to Elvis Costello, she worked with him as a lyricist, and started to compose her own songs, resulting in the album The Girl in the Other Room. The album, released in April 2004, quickly rose to the Top 5 in the UK and made the Australian top 40 album charts. "Temptation", a cover of the Tom Waits song off his Frank's Wild Years album of 1987, reached number 1 of the World Jazz Charts (based on the US, Germany, France, Japan and China).


Honours

In 2000, she was awarded the Order of British Columbia. In 2003 she was given an honorary PhD (Fine Arts) from the University of Victoria. In 2004 she was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame. In 2005, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

She is an honorary board member of the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

Lisa Bonet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Lisa Michelle Bonet (Boney)
Born November 16, 1967 (age 37)
Origin San Francisco, California

Lisa Michelle Boney (born November 16, 1967), known professionally as Lisa Bonet, is an American actress who is a native of San Francisco, California.




Early Life

Bonet, who is Black and Jewish, lived most of her life in New York and Los Angeles, where she attended Reseda High School in Reseda, California, and Celluloid Actor's Studio in North Hollywood where she majored in Acting.[1]

Lisa is the child of a Jewish mother and a black father, who was a music teacher. Her parents divorced when she was young.


Career

She is best known for playing the role of Denise Huxtable on The Cosby Show alongside Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad, among others, but Bonet actually began acting when she was 11, attending many auditions and participating in several television commercials before she became a star.

Bonet was known to have a wild side. In 1987 she accepted the role of Epiphany Proudfoot in the movie Angel Heart opposite Mickey Rourke, directed by Alan Parker. Her appearance caused controversy and some scenes had to be cut to avoid an X rating. [2] Her explicit sex scenes in the film (and later a nude photo shoot for Rolling Stone Magazine) drew concern from the producers of The Cosby Show, who felt it detracted from her character's image. She was initially fired by the producers at the urging of Bill Cosby; however, when she threatened legal action, the spinoff series A Different World was created as a compromise. The movie appearance made headlines, but didn't greatly boost her film career. On her 20th birthday, she married singer Lenny Kravitz (they went to Las Vegas and eloped) (his mother was the late Roxie Roker of The Jeffersons sitcom fame).

"It was interesting when we were first finding out about each other, that our backgrounds were so similar," Bonet recalled. "When I first told him my mom was Jewish, and he said 'So's my dad,' I thought that was both unusual and enchanting. I felt like, 'Okay, here's someone who really knows how it is.' And I think I trusted him a little more with my feelings and let him inside a little more than I ordinarily would have."[3]

Bonet was a sex symbol, especially among African-American men who were teens during her time on The Cosby Show. Sean Combs mentions this during an I Love the 80's featurette on The Cosby Show. Her status as sex symbol became controversial when African Americans questioned the long standing stereotype of light skinned blacks being considered more attractive than dark skinned blacks---reactions included the celebration of so-called "black" features such as in songs by Sir Mix-A-Lot (Baby Got Back) and later by rapper Snoop Dogg (Thick Legs).

After giving birth to daughter Zoe Isabella Kravitz in 1989, she and Lenny separated in a bitter breakup and they eventually divorced in 1993. She began to accept jobs on straight-to-video releases and made-for-TV movies. She then changed her name legally in 1995 to Lilakoi Moon, deciding to continue using her birth name on the productions she participated in. Soon she started dating yoga instructor Brian Kest, with whom she had a son, and in 1998 she had a supporting role in Enemy of the State with Will Smith. In 2000 she appeared in the movie High Fidelity. Her most recent film appearance was in Biker Boyz which reunited her with former co-star Kadeem Hardison of A Different World.

A hip-hop album dedicated to Lisa Bonet called Felt, Vol. 2: A Tribute to Lisa Bonet was created by Slug (from Atmosphere) and MURS and produced by Ant (also from Atmosphere) and was released on June 12, 2005. This album was the sequel to "Felt: A Tribute to Christina Ricci". Each CD was released lightheartedly, supposedly to resurrect the careers of each struggling B-level actress.

In August 2006 Lisa appeared in a week-long A Different World reunion special that aired on Nick At Nite, along with fellow co-stars Hardison, Jasmine Guy, Cree Summer, Dawnn Lewis, Darryl M. Bell, and Sinbad. Lisa Bonet has taken a role in Gambit starring Colin Firth,and Ben Kingsly.

Martha Plimpton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Martha Plimpton (born Martha Carradine on November 16, 1970, in New York City) is a former model turned actress who was born to famous actor parents Keith Carradine and Shelley Plimpton. Her first acting appearance was when she was brought on stage by her mother in the short-lived Broadway play The Leaf People 1

Plimpton began her career in modeling, securing an early 80s campaign for Calvin Klein. After a featured appearance in the 1981 film Rollover, she appeared in the deep-south independent drama The River Rat opposite Tommy Lee Jones. Her breakthrough performance was as Stef Steinbrenner in the 1985 cult classic The Goonies. She also appeared that year in a featured role on the television sitcom Family Ties.

This would begin a trend of Plimpton being repeatedly cast in the role of a rebellious tomboy for several years, beginning with her critically lauded performance as the Reverend Spellgood (Andre Gregory)'s daughter in the 1986 film The Mosquito Coast starring Harrison Ford. It was on the set of this film that she met her future real-life love interest River Phoenix.

A critically praised but commercially unsuccessful venture with Barbara Hershey in the 1987 film Shy People was followed by a disastrous and panned performance in the quirky 1988 ensemble comedy Stars and Bars. This was released shortly before Plimpton's second collaboration with Phoenix in the film Running on Empty, an Academy Award-nominated film for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award.

Plimpton's high-profile relationship with Phoenix, including their appearance together at the Oscars where she was bald, overshadowed her work. (Their relationship would later end due to Plimpton's objection to his drug use, from which he died in 1993.) Plimpton began what became a career trend, mixing small independent film appearances with supporting roles in big-budget films. She appeared in the 1989 Woody Allen film Another Woman; that year, she co-starred with Jami Gertz as a cancer patient in the German film Zwei Frauen, which was released in America as Silence Like Glass. The film was nominated for Outstanding Feature Film at the German Film Awards.


Plimpton's most high-profile performance since The Goonies was in the 1989 Steve Martin film Parenthood. Plimpton had shaved her head bald to play a cancer patient in Zwei Frauen, and her reputation for playing rebellious teenagers secured her the role of the indignant teenage daughter (who shaves her head) of Dianne Wiest. Coincidentally, Plimpton starred alongside Joaquin Phoenix (then credited as Leaf Phoenix), the younger brother of her former boyfriend River, in this role.

Plimpton worked sparingly in 1991 with a supporting role in the Robert De Niro film Stanley & Iris. In 1992 Plimpton appeared as a lesbian terrorist in the independent film Inside Monkey Zetterland and was finally given a starring role in the film Samantha. The film received lukewarm reviews and did not succeed financially.

Despite its shortcomings, the success of Samantha garnered Plimpton a variety of roles in 1993. She appeared with Cuba Gooding, Jr., in the television film Daybreak and was a part of the mostly improvised television film Chantilly Lace. She had a featured role in the big-budget films Josh and S.A.M. and played the lead in the critically blasted film adaptation of the Carolyn Chute novel The Beans of Egypt, Maine. As a testament to her own "indie cred", Plimpton also appeared that year as herself in the independent film My Life's in Turnaround, a movie about filmmakers trying to make a movie.

Plimpton continued to make appearances in featured roles in both independent films and mainstream movies from 1994 through 1997, most notably as the lesbian lover of radical feminist Valerie Solanas in the film I Shot Andy Warhol.

In 1997 the Showtime Network cast Plimpton as the female lead in a television film called The Defenders: Payback. The show was a retooling of the classic television show by the same name, and the characters were descendants of character Lawrence Preston, a role reprised by actor E.G. Marshall. The intent was to spin the program off into a series akin to Law & Order, but Marshall died in 1998. Two additional episodes (The Defenders: Choice of Evils and The Defenders: Taking the First) were aired as specials that year. The decision was made to not continue production (despite high ratings and critical praise) due to Marshall's death.

Plimpton's career in film began to stall and she became involved with The Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. She is single-handedly credited with revitalizing the play Hedda Gabler through her work there. In 1998 she appeared in the John Waters film Pecker; the film was lambasted but Plimpton's work was praised. This also occurred with her appearance in the 1999 bomb 200 Cigarettes.

In 1999 Plimpton had a recurring role in the television drama ER as Meg Corwyn. In 2001 she co-starred with Jacqueline Bisset in The Sleepy Time Gal, which was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival. In further testament to her cult following, Plimpton was name-dropped in the 2000 album Ghost Stories by the band The Lawrence Arms on a song called "Light Breathing (Me and Martha Plimpton in a Fancy Elevator)".

In 2002 she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her guest appearance on the television drama Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. She was the voice of Miss Crumbles in the 2004 animated film Hair High by Bill Plympton. In 2004 she also guest-starred on an episode of the program 7th Heaven; she received her first writing credit for a different episode of the show that year entitled "Red Socks".

As of 2005 she continues to act in television, film and on stage. She has begun narrating audiobooks, notably the novel Diary by Chuck Palahniuk and Mrs. Kimble by Jennifer Haigh. She had been linked to Fred Armisen of Saturday Night Live 2. Martha Plimpton also had a recurring role on the NBC show Surface, which aired in the 2005-06 season.

From October 2006 until March 2007, she is in The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy by Tom Stoppard, playing at the Lincoln Center.