WA2K Radio is now on the air

Ah, hbg, I envy you, Canada. My lawn looks as though it has been attacked by creatures of an unknown species.

Love the life that you live song. Tried to find "I Like the Likes of You", but google is only selling these days, I'm afraid.

Here's one from Chris Cagle that I could put on and wear, folks.


Artist/Band: Chris Cagle
Lovin' You Lovin' Me

Look at me
And tell me what you want is what you see
Hold me close
And make it feel like you won't ever let me go
Give me some kind of sign to show me that you fell the same way I do inside
Because I'm ...

Lovin' you lovin' me
Girl, I'm so into, right now I can barely breathe
You're all that I'll ever need
So kiss me, like it's our last
Take me away and darling, don't bring me back
Because I'm lovin' you lovin' me
It's so nice
When we're alone and your eyes dance with mine
And it tastes so sweet when you lay those lovin' lips on me
It feels good, solid and strong
And I'm crazy about the way that things are moving along
Because I'm lovin' you lovin' me
Girl, I'm so into you right now I can barely breathe
You're all that I'll ever need
So kiss me, like it's our last
Take me away and darling, don't bring me back
Because I'm
Lovin' you lovin' me
Girl, I'm so into you right now I can barely breathe
You're all that I'll ever need
So kiss me like it's our last
Take me away and darling, don't bring me back
Because I'm lovin' you lovin' me

Hey, Letty, mighty pretty song.

Here's a number from the "Riding with the King" CD.

Worried Life Blues
by Maceo Merryweather

Oh lordy lord, oh lordy lord.
It hurts me so bad for us to part.
But someday baby,
I ain't gonna worry my life any more.

You're on my mind every place I go.
How much I love you, nobody know.
Yeah, someday babe,
I ain't gonna worry my life any more.

So many days since you went away.
I've had to worry both night and day.
Yeah, but someday babe,
I ain't gonna worry my life any more.

So many nights since you've been gone.
I've been worried, grieving my life alone.
Yeah, but someday babe,
I ain't gonna worry my life any more.

So that's my story and this is all I've got to say to you:
Bye bye, baby, I don't care what you do.
'Cause someday darling,
I won't have to worry my life any more.

Oh lordy lord, oh lordy lord.
It hurts me so bad for us to part.
Oh, but someday baby,
I ain't gonna worry my life any more.

Soccer George, Welcome back, buddy. How long ago Mr. Turtle dropped in to our wee studio and started his "telling" songs. I just noticed that Cole Porter wrote mine.

Ah, George, it takes a worried man to sing a worried song, no? Yours is perfect, honey.

How about one that was a favorite of our saxophonist, and a great jazz ballad.

Don't worry 'bout me
I'll get along
Forget about me
Be happy my love

Let's say that our little show is over
And so the story ends
Why not call it a day, the sensible way
And still be friends

Look out for yourself
Should always be the rule
Give your heart and your love, to whomever you love
Don't you be a fool

Darling why stop to cling, to some fading thing
That used to be
If you can't forget
Don't you worry 'bout me

back from inspecting the garden . i know how to carry the rake so i look like a proper gardener .
even though the grass is only starting to get a touch of green , the weeds are happily jumping up all over the place !
hbg

hbg, It seems to me that a rake and a roue are synonyms. Hmmmm.

I think that you and I once discussed that Oscar Peterson quit doing vocals because he sounded too much like Nat Cole. Anyway, Canada, I love Polka dots and Moonbeams, and yes, Oscar and Stan Getz did that one, too.

Diana Krall sang one of Oscar's songs to him as a tribute, but in keeping with your garden, let's hear this one by that fantastic vocalist.

T'was just a garden in the rain
Close to a little leafy lane
A touch of color 'neath skies of gray
The raindrops kissed the flowerbeds
The blossoms raised their leafy heads
A perfumed thank you
They seemed to say

Surely here was charm beyond
Compare to view
Maybe it was just that
I was there with you

T'was just a garden in the rain
But then the sun came out again
And sent us happily on our way

The fellow in the pictures is Larry Earley. He lives about 30 miles from Orlando , in the very rural community of Okahumpka, just off the Florida turnpike in Lake County , Florida . He has 20 acres of land and on it, a few cows and horses. Mostly it's pasture land that is fenced with wo! ods surrounding him.
He is neighbored by a larger cattle ranch.

His neighbor has complained for several years that wild hogs had been raiding his cattle feeders and salt licks.

Last month he saw what he thought was a cow in his pond and went to see if it was stuck in the mud and would have to be pulled out. When he got close enough to realize it was a hog, the thing made a charge at him. He had driven his truck down to the pond and ca rries a pistol in it (as any Florida redneck would, and I say that with genuine affection). He got his handgun and when it came at him again, he shot it twice and killed it.

Wild hogs in Florida usually run from 100-400 pounds with a 400 pounder being a monster. Because this one had been feasting on grain for several years it had grown to mammoth size. When Larry took it to the processor it weighed in at over 1100 pounds! The meat has no wild taste, as it was! grain fed; and Larry is quite the hero. He has fed many fireman and provided the homeless shelter in downtown Orlando with a couple! of mea ls. You were worried about just gators in Florida !

Bacon for Life



Hmmm. Images didn't appear. Take my word for it, that's a really big pig. Enough to ruin anyone's lawn.

letty wrote :




but this roue can also rake .
hbg

Don't worry bout me it's all over now though I may be blue I'll manage somehow
Love can't be explained can't be controlled one day it's warm next day it's cold
Don't pity me cause I'm feeling blue don't be ashamed it might have been you
Oh oh oh oh oh love kiss me one time then go love I'll understand don't worry bout me
[ guitar ]
Sweet sweet sweet love I want you to be as happy as I when you loved me
I'll never forget you your sweet memory it's all over now don't worry bout me
When one heart tells one heart one heart goodbye one heart is free one heart will cry
Oh oh oh oh oh sweet sweet baby sweet baby sweet
It's all right don't worry bout me

Don't Worry
Marty Robbins

While riding on a train goin' west,
I fell asleep for to take my rest.
I dreamed a dream that made me sad,
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had.

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon,
Where we together weathered many a storm,
Laughin' and singin' till the early hours of the morn.

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung,
Our words were told, our songs were sung,
Where we longed for nothin' and were quite satisfied
Talkin' and a-jokin' about the world outside.

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold,
We never thought we could ever get old.
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one.

As easy it was to tell black from white,
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right.
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split.

How many a year has passed and gone,
And many a gamble has been lost and won,
And many a road taken by many a friend,
And each one I've never seen again.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
That we could sit simply in that room again.
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat,
I'd give it all gladly if our lives could be like that.

Bob Dylan:
Bob Dylan's Dream

Jerry Lee Lewis - Break My Mind

Baby, oh! Baby
Tell the man at the ticket stand
That you've changed your mind
Let me run on out and tell the cab
To keep his meter flyin'
Or did you say goodbye to me
Babe, you're gonna break my mind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

Baby, I say, Baby
Let me take your suitcase
Off of them scales in time
Tell the man that you suddenly developed
A thing about flyin', flyin'
'Cause if you say goodbye to me, Baby
You know you?re gonna break my mind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

Break my mind
Break my mind
Oh! I just can't stand
To hear them big jet engines whine
Break my mind
Break my mind, oh! Lord
If you leave you're gonna leave
A babblin' fool behind

Hey, Boston Bob. I most certainly will take your word for it, buddy. I know there are wild boars all over the place in that area of Florida, and dangerous. Wish we could see your image, however. Gives new meaning to bringing home the bacon.

Heh, heh. hbg. I figured that would get a raised eyebrow out of you. Isn't there a painting called Man with a Hoe? (the kind you kill the weeds with)

Love your song by the Monk, buddy, and I had almost forgotten about Carmen McRae. I need to check her out.

Well, I am certainly glad to see our edgar back with us. He's always in the company of great performers such as Marty and Bob and Jerry Lee.

Thanks, Texas. Glad you and your family are all right.

Goodnight, all. Having some technical difficulties.

From Letty with love.

hope those technical difficulties clear up soon. i have to confess to a weakness for Michael Franks. his music could be categorized as smooth jazz, which i generally abhor, but he's a super songwriter. here's 2 by Mr. Franks, beginning with Eggplant:

Whenever I explore the land of yin
I always take one on the chin
And now this lioness has almost made me tame.
I can't pronounce her name but Eggplant is her game.

The lady sticks to me like white on rice.
She never cooks the same way twice.
Maybe it's the mushrooms. Maybe the tomatoes.
I can't reveal her name but Eggplant is her game.

When my baby cooks her Eggplant,
She don't read no book.
She's got a Gioconda kinda of dirty look
And my baby cooks her Eggplant,
Bout 19 different ways.
Sometimes I just have it raw with Mayonnaise.

-break-

Maybe its the way she grates her cheese,
Or just the freckles on her knees.
Maybe its the scallions. Maybe she's Italian.
I can't reveal her name but Eggplant is her game.

When my baby cooks her Eggplant,
She don't read no book.
She's got a Gioconda kinda of dirty look.
And my baby cooks her Eggplant,
Bout 19 different ways.
Sometimes I just have it raw with Mayonnaise.

Eggplant was from his 2nd LP. here's Your Secret's Safe With Me from a later album:

Lost your toy lover boy
In the mirror take a look
You're much older now
You used to be 23
Suddenly the summer ends
And you don't know how
It was endless fun hit and run
Sweet talk was your middle name,
Always on the prowl;
Just one dance no romance
Livin' like an alley cat
And you sure could howl

Your secret's safe with me
You're tired and lonely
The only cure will be love
Your secret's safe with me
Ain't no contender
You got no fist in your glove
Your secret's safe with me
You're searching for someone
Who's got no lies to conceal
Your secret's safe with me
Waiting for someone
Whose eyes will tell you it's real
Whose eyes will tell you it's real
Whose eyes will tell you it's...

Live and learn wait your turn
Don't you know the deepest love
Comes to those who wait
Why be smart in your heart
Leading you to someone new
No it's not too late

Your secret's safe with me
(Your secret's safe with me)
Tired and lonely
The only cure will be love
Your secret's safe with me
(Your secret's safe with me)
Ain't no contender
You got no fist in your glove
Your secret's safe with me
(Your secret's safe with me)
You're searching for someone
Who's got no lies to conceal
Your secret's safe with me
(Your secret's safe with me)
Waiting for someone
Whose eyes will tell you it's real
(Will tell you it's real...)

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

Well, folks, there's our Turtle back with Michael Franks. Don't know him, M.D., but I did do a bit of research and found this song.

Flirting with temptation
Falling helplessly
From the moment I saw you
I knew that
You were meant for me

All those years to find you
Love's telepathy
Guided me like a heartbeat
Repeating:
You were meant for me
Such a samba
Ay caramba!
Dancing close so
Sensuoso
Rhythms underneath the
Tropic skies
Helped me to realize
How evidently
You were meant for me

There's just one solution
To this mystery
Give your heart
In surrender
Admit that
You were meant for me.

When I have equipment problems, I just shut the entire operation down and delete any response that has recently been made just in case that is the culprit. Your dislike of the genre called "smooth jazz" reminded me of Kev and his confusion over the classification of music types. Thanks, yit. It was a pleasant memory.

Also found the painting, Man with a Hoe, and the poem that matches it. Later, we shall read that one for the edification of our listeners.

Frankie Laine
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Francesco Paolo LoVecchio
Born March 30, 1913
Died February 6, 2007
Genre(s) Pop Standards
Jazz
Rhythm and Blues
Gospel
Folk
Country
Years active 1937-2005
Label(s) Mercury
Columbia
Capitol
ABC
Amos
Score
Website Official Website

Frankie Laine, born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio (March 30, 1913 - February 6, 2007), was one of the most successful American singers of the twentieth century. Often billed as America's Number One Song Stylist, his other nicknames include Mr. Rhythm, Old Leather Lungs, and Old Man Jazz.



Style

A clarion-voiced singer with lots of style, able to fill halls without a microphone, and one of the biggest hit-makers of late 1940s/early 1950s, Laine had more than 70 charted records, 21 gold records, and worldwide sales of over 250 million disks.[1] Originally a rhythm and blues influenced jazz singer, Laine excelled at virtually every music style, eventually expanding to such varied genres as popular standards, gospel, folk, country, western/Americana, rock 'n' roll, and the occasional novelty number. He was also known as Mr Rhythm for his driving jazzy style.

Laine was the first and biggest of a new breed of black-influenced singers who rose to prominence in the post-WWII era. This new, raw, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era's singing styles; and was, indeed, a harbinger of the rock 'n' roll music that was to come. As music historian Jonny Whiteside wrote:

In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of black-influenced white performers laid down a baffling hip array of new sounds ... Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big white lad with 'steel tonsils' who belted out torch blues while stomping his size twelve foot in joints like Billy Berg's, Club Hangover and the Bandbox. ... Laine's intense vocal style owed nothing to Crosby, Sinatra or Dick Haymes. Instead he drew from Billy Eckstine, Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and with it Laine had sown the seeds from which an entire new perception and audience would grow. ... Frank Sinatra represented perhaps the highest flowering of a quarter century tradition of crooning but suddenly found himself an anachronism. First Frankie Laine, then Tony Bennett, and now Johnnie (Ray), dubbed 'the Belters' and 'the Exciters,' came along with a brash vibrancy and vulgar beat that made the old bandstand routine which Frank meticulously perfected seem almost invalid.[2]

In the words of Jazz critic Richard Grudens:

Frank's style was very innovative, which was why he had such difficulty with early acceptance. He would bend notes and sing about the chordal context of a note rather than to sing the note directly, and he stressed each rhythmic downbeat, which was different from the smooth balladeer of his time.[3]

His 1946 recording of "That's My Desire" remains a landmark record signalling the end of both the dominance of the big bands and the crooning styles favored by contemporaries Dick Haymes and Frank Sinatra.[4] Often called the first of the blue-eyed soul singers,[5] Laine's style cleared the way for many artists who arose in the late 40s and early 50s, including Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, Johnnie Ray and Elvis Presley (who was initially described by critics as "a cross between Johnnie Ray and Frankie Laine").[6]

I think that Frank probably was one of the forerunner of .... blues, of .... rock 'n' roll. A lot of singers who sing with a passionate demeanor -- Frank was and is definitely that. I always used to love to mimic him with 'That's...my...desire.' And then later Johnnie Ray came along that made all of those kind of movements, but Frank had already done them. -- Patti Page[7]

Throughout the 1950s, Laine enjoyed a second career singing the title songs over the opening credits of Hollywood films and television shows, including: Gunfight at the OK Corral, 3:10 to Yuma, Bullwhip and Rawhide. His rendition of the title song for Mel Brooks' 1974 hit movie Blazing Saddles won an Oscar nomination for Best Song, and on television, Laine's featured recording of Rawhide for the series of the same name became a popular theme song.

You can't categorize him. He's one of those singers that's not in one track. And yet and still I think that his records had more excitement and life into it. And I think that was his big selling point, that he was so full of energy. You know when hear his records it was dynamite energy.-- Herb Jeffries[8]


Biography

Early years

Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913 to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (nee Salerno). His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily to Chicago's "Little Italy", where his father worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone.

The eldest of eight children, he got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school. He next attended Lane Technical High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted to be a singer when he cut school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, "The Singing Fool." At 17 he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such enthusiastic applause that he ended up performing five encores on his first night. But success as a singer was another 17 years away.

Some of his other early influences during this period included Enrico Caruso, Carlo Buti, and, especially, Bessie Smith -- a record of whose somehow wound up in his parents' collection:

I can still close my eyes and visualize its blue and purple label. It was a Bessie Smith recording of 'The Bleeding Hearted Blues,' with 'Midnight Blues' on the other side. The first time I laid the needle down on that record I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement. It was my first exposure to jazz and the blues, although I had no idea at the time what to call those magical sounds. I just knew I had to hear more of them! -- Frankie Laine[9]


One of the numerous "Greatest Hits" collections for Frankie Laine.Shortly after graduating high school, Laine signed on as a member of The Merry Garden Company, and toured with them, working dance marathons during the Great Depression (setting the world record of 3,501 hours with partner Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City's Million Dollar Pier in 1932). Still billed as Frank LoVecchio, he would entertain the spectators during the fifteen minute breaks the dancers were given each hour. During his marathon days, he worked with several up-and-coming entertainers including Rose Marie, Red Skelton and a fourteen-year old Anita O'Day for whom he served as a mentor (as noted by Laine in a 1998 interview by David Miller).

Other artists whose styles began to influence Laine at this time were Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong (more his trumpet playing, than his vocals), Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey and Nat "King" Cole.

His next big break came when he replaced Perry Como in the Freddy Carlone band in Cleveland in 1937. But success continued to elude him and he spent the next 10 years alternating between singing at small jazz clubs on both coasts, and a series of jobs including that of a bouncer, a dance instructor, a used car salesman, an agent, a synthetic leather factory worker, and a machinist at a defense plant. It was while working at the defense plant during the Second World War that he first began writing songs ("It Only Happens Once" was written at the plant). At the lowest point of his career, he was sleeping on a bench in Central Park.

I would sneak into hotel rooms and sleep on floor. In fact, I was bodily thrown out of 11 different New York hotels. I stayed in YMCAs and with anyone who would let me flop. Eventually I was down to my last four cents, and my bed became a roughened wooden bench in Central Park. I used my four pennies to buy four tiny Baby Ruth candy bars and rationed myself to one a day. -- Frankie Laine[10]

In 1943 he moved out to California where he sang in the background of several Hollywood films including The Harvey Girls, and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy The Kid From Brooklyn. It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and composer/pianist Carl Fischer who was to be his songwriting partner, musical director and piano accompanist until his death in 1954. Their songwriting collaborations included "I'd Give My Life," "Baby, Just For Me," "What Could Be Sweeter?," "Forever More," and the jazz standard "We'll Be Together Again."

It wasn't until the end of 1946 when Hoagy Carmichael heard him singing at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles that success finally arrived. Unemployed at the time, Laine would drop in the various Los Angeles nightclubs in hopes that the band playing there would call him up to sing. Not knowing that Carmichael was in the audience, Laine sang the Carmichael-penned standard "Rockin' Chair" when Slim Gaillard called him up to the stage to sing. This eventually led to a contract with the newly established Mercury records. Laine and Carmichael would later collaborate on a song, "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby".


"That's My Desire"

Even after Carmichael's discovering him, Laine still was considered to be only an intermission act at Billy Berg's. His next big break came when he dusted off a fifteen-year old song that few people remembered in 1946: "That's My Desire." Laine had picked up the song from songstress June Hart a half a dozen years earlier, when he sang at the College Inn in Cleveland. He introduced "Desire" as a "new" song -- meaning new to his repertoire at Berg's -- but the audience mistook it for a new song that had just been written. He ended up singing it five times that night. After that, Frankie Laine quickly became the star attraction at Berg's, and the record company executives took note.

Laine soon had patrons lining up around the block to hear him sing Desire. Among them was R&B artist Hadda Brooks, known for her boogie woogie piano playing. She went to listen to him every night, and eventually cut her own version of the song, which became a big-hit on the "harlem" charts. "I liked the way he did it" Brooks recalls, "he sings with soul, he sings the way he feels."[11]

He was soon recording for the fledgling Mercury label, and "That's My Desire" was one of the songs cut in his first recording session there. It quickly took the number one spot on the R&B charts, where Laine was initially mistaken for being black; and made it to the #4 spot on the Mainstream charts. Although it was quickly covered by many other artists, including Sammy Kaye who took it to the #2 spot, it was Laine's version that became the standard.

"Desire" became Frankie Laine's first Gold Record, and established him as a force in the music world. A series of hit singles quickly followed, including "Black and Blue," "Mam'selle," "Two Loves Have I," "Shine," "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Monday Again," and many others.


At Mercury

Frankie Laine's name was synonymous with jazz in the late 40's[12] when, accompanied by Carl Fischer (with whom he wrote the great standard "We'll Be Together Again") and some of the best jazz men in the business, he was swinging standards like "By the River Sainte Marie," "Black and Blue," "Rockin' Chair," "West End Blues" "At the End of the Road," "Ain't That Just Like a Woman," "That Ain't Right," "Exactly Like You," and "Sleepy Ol' River" on the Mercury label.

But Laine had his greatest success after impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a universal quality in Laine's voice which he began to exploit via a succession of chart-topping popular songs often with a folk or western flavor.

Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team who, with their first collaboration, "That Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. It was also Laine's fifth Gold Record. The song was knocked down to the number two position by Laine and Miller's second collaboration, "Mule Train" which proved to be an even bigger hit, making Frankie Laine the first artist to ever simultaneously hold the Number One and Two positions on the charts.) "Mule Train", with its whip cracks and echo, has been cited as the first song to utilize an "aural texture" that "set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock."[13]

Other Laine/Miller Mercury hits included "Shine," "On the Sunny Side of the Street," "Mam'selle," "Two Loves Have I," "Dream a Little Dream of Me," "All of Me," "Georgia on My Mind", "Blue Turning Grey Over You," "The Stars and Stripes Forever," "Nevertheless" "The Cry of the Wild Goose," "Swamp Girl," "Satan Wears a Satin Gown," and "Music, Maestro Please".

He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing ... and you must remember that in those days there were no videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both. -- Mitch Miller[14]

But the biggest label of all was Columbia Records, and in 1950 Mitch Miller left Mercury to embark upon his phenomenally successful career as the A&R man there. Laine's contract at Mercury would be up for renewal the following year, and Miller soon brought Laine to Columbia as well. Laine's contract with Columbia was the most lucrative in the industry until RCA bought Elvis Presley's contract five years later.[15]


At Columbia

Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a double-sided hit with the single "Jezebel"/"Rose, Rose, I Love You," confirming his reputation as the premiere hitmaker of the early 50s. Other Laine hits from this period include "High Noon," "Jealousy (Jalousie)," "The Girl in the Woods," "When You're in Love," "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (with Jo Stafford), "Your Cheatin' Heart," "Granada," "Hey Joe!," "The Kid's Last Fight," "Cool Water," "Someday," "A Woman in Love," "Love is a Golden Ring" (with The Easy Riders), and "Moonlight Gambler."

A consummate duettist, he also scored hits with Patti Page ("I Love You for That"), Doris Day ("Sugarbush"), Jo Stafford ("Hey, Good Lookin'," "Gambella [The Gambling Lady])," "Hambone," "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town," "Settin' the Woods on Fire," and many others), Jimmy Boyd ("Tell Me a Story," "The Little Boy and the Old Man"), the Four Lads ("Rain, Rain, Rain") and Johnnie Ray ("Up Above My Head").

Frankie scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia,[16] and it is many of his songs from this period that are most readily associated with him. His Greatest Hits album, released in 1957, has been a perennial best seller that has never gone out of print.

In 1953 he set two more records (this time on the UK charts): weeks at No 1 for a song ("I Believe," which held the number one spot for 18 weeks), and weeks at No 1 for an artist in a single year (27 weeks: a little over half the year, when "Hey Joe!" and "Answer Me" became number one hits as well). In spite of the popularity of rock 'n' roll artists like Elvis Presley and The Beatles, fifty-plus years later, both of Laine's records still hold.[17]





Always exceedingly popular in the UK, he broke attendance records at the London Palladium in 1952 and gave a Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II in 1954. By the end of the decade he remained far ahead of Elvis Presley as the most successful artist on the British charts. See the "Chart of All Time" for details. "I Believe" is listed as the second most popular song of all time on the British charts as well.[18]

Throughout the remainder of the 50s and into the early 60s, he released a number of theme albums including Rockin' (with Paul Weston's Orchestra), Jazz Spectacular (with jazz trumpet great Buck Clayton), Frankie Laine And The Four Lads (a gospel album), Reunion In Rhythm (with Michel Legrand), Balladeer (folk songs), Torchin' (Torch songs), Hell Bent For Leather (western songs), Call Of The Wild (outdoor songs), Wanderlust (the last four with John Williams' Orchestra), etc.

It is during this period that many of Laine's fans consider his voice to have been at its peak.[19] "De Glory Road," from his Wanderlust album of 1963 was one of Laine's personal favorites. Other great Laine album cuts from Columbia include: "You Are My Love," "Because," "I Would Do Most Anything for You," "Blue Moon," "Lover Come Back to Me," "Rocks and Gravel," "On a Monday," "And Doesn't She Roll," "Riders in the Sky," "Serenade," "Bowie Knife," "Wanted Man," "La Paloma," "Midnight on a Rainy Monday," "These Foolish Things," "I Got it Bad," "On the Road to Mandalay," and "Stars Fell on Alabama."

Frankie Laine was somebody that everybody knew. He was a kind of a household word like Frank Sinatra or Bobby Darin or Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald -- Frankie Laine was one of the great popular singers and stylists of that time. ... And his style ... he was one of those artists who had such a unique stamp -- nobody sounded like he did. You could hear two notes and you knew who it was and you were right on the beam with it right away. And of course that defines a successful popular artist, at least at that time. These people were all uniquely individual and Frank was on the front rank of those people in his appeal to the public and his success and certainly in his identifiability. -- John Williams.[20]


Social Activism

Along with opening the door for many R&B performers, Laine played a significant role in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and '60s. When Nat King Cole's television show was unable to get a sponsor, Laine crossed the color line, becoming the first white artist to appear as a guest (foregoing his usual salary of $10,000.00 as Cole's show only paid scale). Many other top white singers followed suit, including Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, but Cole's show still couldn't get enough sponsors to continue.

In the following decade, Frankie Laine joined several African American artists who gave a free concert for Martin Luther King's supporters during their Selma to Montgomery marches on Washington DC.[21]

Laine, who had a strong appreciation of African-American music, went so far as to record at least two songs that have being black as their subject matter, "Shine" and Fats Waller's "Black and Blue". Both were recorded early in his career at Mecury, and helped to contribute to the initial confusion among fans about his race.

Laine was also active in many charities as well, including Meals on Wheels and The Salvation Army. Among his charitable works were a series of local benefit concerts and his having organized a nationwide drive to provide "Shoes for the Homeless." He donated a large portion of his time and talent to many San Diego charities and homeless shelters, as well as the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Village. He was also an emeritus member of the board of directors for the Mercy Hospital Foundation.


Film and Television

Beginning in the late 1940s, Frankie Laine starred in over a half dozen backstage musicals, often playing himself; several of these were written and directed by a young Blake Edwards. The films were: "Make Believe Ballroom" - Columbia, 1949; "When You're Smiling" - Columbia, 1950; "Sunny Side Of The Street" - Columbia, 1951; "Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder" - Columbia, 1952; "Bring Your Smile Along" - Columbia, 1955; "He Laughed Last" - Columbia, 1956; and "Meet Me In Las Vegas" - MGM, 1956. The last, a big budget MGM musical starring Cyd Charisse features Laine performing "Hell Hath No Fury" and provides us with a glimpse of what his 1950s Las Vegas nightclub act must have been like.

His films were very popular in the United Kingdom, but failed to establish him as a movie star in the United States. State side, Laine gained more popularity in the new medium of television.

On television he hosted three variety shows: The Frankie Laine Hour in 1950, The Frankie Laine Show"(with Connie Haines) 1954-5, and "Frankie Laine Time" in 1955-6. The Last was a summer replacement for The Arthur Godfrey Show and featured such high-powered guest stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Johnnie Ray, Georgia Gibbs, The Four Lads, Cab Calloway, Patti Page, Eddie Heywood, Duke Ellington, Boris Karloff, Patti Andrews, Joni James, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Krupa, Teresa Brewer, Jack Teagarden and Polly Bergen.

He had a different sound, you know and he had such emotion and heart. And of course you recognized Frankie, just like Sinatra had that sound that you'd always recognize. That's what made for hit records, as well as being a great singer. But you have to have a real special sound that never changes. He could do it all ... but again, you always knew that it was Frankie Laine. -- Connie Haines[22]

He was a frequent guest star on various other shows of the time including Shower of Stars, The Steve Allen Show, The Toast of the Town, What's My Line?, This is Your Life, Bachelor Father, The Sinatra Show, The Walter Winchell Show, The Perry Como Show, The Gary Moore Show, Masquerade Party, The Mike Douglas Show, and American Bandstand.

In the 1960s, he continued appearing on variety shows like Laugh-In, but took on several serious guest-starring roles in shows like Rawhide, Burke's Law, and Perry Mason. His theme song for Rawhide proved to be popular and helped to make the show, starring a young, unknown actor named Clint Eastwood a hit. Other TV series' for which Laine sang the theme song included "Gunslinger," and "Rango." In 1976, Frankie recorded the Beatles song, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for the ill advised documentary All This and World War II.

Frankie Laine performed at three Academy Awards ceremonies: 1950 ("Mule Train"), 1960 ("The Hanging Tree"), and 1975 ("Blazing Saddles"). Only last two of these ceremonies were televised. In 1981 he performed a medley of his hits on "American Bandstand's 30th Anniversary Special," where he received a standing ovation from the many celebrities present. Later appearances include "Nashville Now," 1989 and "My Music," 2006.


At Capitol, ABC, and Beyond

In 1963 Frankie Laine left Columbia for Capitol Records, but his two years there only produced one album and a handful of singles (mostly of an inspirational nature). He continued performing regularly at this time, including a South African tour.


After switching to ABC Records in the late 1960s, he found himself right back at the top of the charts again, beginning with the first song he'd recorded there, "I'll Take Care of Your Cares." Written as a waltz in the mid-1920s, "Cares" had become the unofficial theme song of the Las Vegas call girls but was virtually unknown outside of the strip. Laine recorded a swinging version that made it to number 39 on the national and to number 2 on the adult contemporary charts. A string of hits followed including "Making Memories," "You Wanted Someone to Play With," "Laura, What's He Got that I Ain't Got," "To Each His Own" "Born to be with You," "I Found You," and "Lord, You Gave Me A Mountain" (which was written for him by country legend Marty Robbins. The last song was a number one hit on the adult contemporary charts (#24 national), and proved that Laine was as big a hit-maker as ever. His last single to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart (Peaking at #86 national) was the forceful reminder that "Dammit Isn't God's Last Name".

Seeking greater artistic freedom, Laine left ABC for the much smaller Amos Records, where he cut two albums in a modern, rock-influenced vein. The first album contained contemporary versions of his greatest hits, such as "Your Cheatin' Heart," "That Lucky Old Sun," "I Believe," "Jezebel," "Shine," and "Moonlight Gambler." The new arrangements worked surprisingly well and many of the cuts can stand alongside of the originals.[23] His second album for Amos was called "A Brand New Day" and, along with the title song, features all new material including "Mr. Bojangles", "Proud Mary," "Put Your Hand in the Hand," "My God and I," and "Talk About the Good Times." It is one of Frankie Laine's personal favorites.[24] Unfortunately for Laine, Amos, which was soon to fold from lack of funds, couldn't adequately promote them at the time. However they are still available through CD re-releases. After Amos folded, Laine started his own label, Score Records, which is still producing albums today.


Later years

His career slowed down a little in the 1980s due to triple and quadruple heart bypasses, but he nevertheless continued cutting albums including Wheels Of A Dream (1998), Old Man Jazz (2002) and The Nashville Connection (2004).

In 1986, he recorded an album, Round Up with Eric Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, which made it to the classical charts. Laine was reportedly pleased and amused,[25] having also placed songs on the country, rhythm and blues, and popular charts in his time.

He recorded his last song, "Taps/My Buddy," shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. The song was dedicated to the New York City Fire Fighters, and Laine has stipulated that profits from the song are donated, in perpetuity, to the NY Fire Fighters.

Frankie Laine's 70-plus year career spanned most of the 20th century and continued into the 21st. Laine was a key figure in the golden age of popular music. On June 12, 1996, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th Annual Songwriters' Hall of Fame awards ceremony at the New York Sheraton. On his 80th birthday, the United States Congress declared him to be a national treasure.[26]

On February 6, 2007, Laine died of heart failure at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. In a prepared statement Laine's family said, "He will be forever remembered for the beautiful music he brought into this world, his wit and sense of humor, along with the love he shared with so many."[27]


Marriages
His first marriage was to actress Nan Grey (June 1950 - July 1993) and Laine adopted her daughters from a previous marriage, Pam and Jan. Following a three-year engagement to Anita Craighead, he married Marcia Ann Kline in June 1999.


Final appearance

In 2005 he appeared in the PBS My Music special despite a recent stroke. Laine died of heart failure on February 6, 2007, following hip replacement surgery at Mercy Hospital in San Diego, not far from his Point Loma home. He was 93. A memorial mass for the late singer, who was a Roman Catholic, was held on Monday, February 12, at the Immaculata parish church on the campus of the University of San Diego.

John Astin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name John Allen Astin
Born March 30, 1930 (age 76)
Baltimore, Maryland
Notable roles Gomez Addams in
The Addams Family

John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is an American actor who has appeared in numerous films and television shows, but is best known for the role of Gomez Addams on The Addams Family television series and similarly eccentric comedic characters.




Personal life

Astin was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Margaret Linnie Mackenzie and Allen Varley Astin. He attended Johns Hopkins University (Class of 1952) after transferring from Washington & Jefferson College. He studied mathematics at both institutions and was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at Johns Hopkins.

He has three sons?-David, Allen, and Tom?-with his first wife, Suzanne Hahn, and two sons?-Sean and Mackenzie, both successful actors?-with his second wife, fellow actor Patty Duke. Sean is not his biological son, but John legally adopted him when he married Patty. John Astin is currently married to Valerie Ann Sandobal.

His younger brother, Alexander Astin, is a professor emeritus at UCLA. His father was the former director of the National Bureau of Standards. He has five granddaughters ?- Alexandra, Elizabeth, Isabella, Sedona and Jaya. He currently teaches theater at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins.


Career

Astin started in theatre, doing voice-over work for commercials. His first big break came in a small but memorable part in the Oscar-winning West Side Story in 1961. In 1962-63, he starred in the sitcom "I'm Dickens - He's Fenster" with Marty Ingels. From 1964-66, he starred in The Addams Family as Gomez Addams, the macabre head of the family.


Return to the Addams familly

He returned on the TV show The New Addams Family as Grandpapa Addams, alongside his successor in the role of Gomez, Glenn Taranto .


Other roles

Astin also played the Riddler on Batman during Frank Gorshin's second season departure (Gorshin came back for the 3rd). Furthermore, he made a notable appearance in popular mystery show Murder, She Wrote, as the villainous Sheriff Harry Pierce. He had a recurring role on the sitcom Night Court as Buddy, eccentric former mental patient and the father of lead character Harry Stone.

Astin received an Academy Award nomination for Prelude, a short film that he wrote, produced, and directed. He was nominated for an Ace Award for his work on Tales from the Crypt, and received an Emmy nomination for the cartoon voice of Gomez on ABC-TV's The Addams Family. He also voiced the character Bull Gator on the animated series Taz-Mania. Astin served for four years on the Board of Directors of the Writers Guild of America, and is active in community affairs in Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

He has continued to work, appearing in a string of Killer Tomatoes films as Professor Gangreen. He also tours the one-man play Edgar Allan Poe: Once Upon a Midnight, written by Paul Day Clemens and Ron Magid. Astin teaches method acting and directing in the Writing Seminars Department at Johns Hopkins University, his alma mater.

Warren Beatty
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Henry Warren Beaty
Born March 30, 1937 (age 70)
Richmond, Virginia, USA
Spouse(s) Annette Bening
(1992-present)
Academy Awards

Academy Award for Best Director
1981 Reds
Golden Globe Awards

Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy
1979 Heaven Can Wait
Best Director - Motion Picture
1982 Reds

Henry Warren Beaty (born March 30, 1937), better known as Warren Beatty, is an Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American actor, producer, screenwriter, and director. He long had a reputation as a womanizer and playboy, but that reputation has faded since his 1992 marriage to Annette Bening. The Academy Awards honored him with the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 2000, presented by his close friend Jack Nicholson, while in 2004 he received a Kennedy Center Honor. In 2007, he was honored with the Cecil B. Demille Award at the Golden Globe Awards Ceremony, with the award, and a tribute montage, presented by Tom Hanks.




Biography

Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia's Bellevue neighborhood to an American father whose family had lived there for several centuries, and a Canadian mother of half Scottish and half Irish descent; the family was devoutly Baptist.

His father, Ira O. Beatty, moved his family from Richmond to Norfolk, Virginia and then Arlington, Virginia where he became a middle school principal.

His elder sister of three years is the actress and writer Shirley MacLaine.

Beatty was a star football player at Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia where his sister also went. Encouraged by his older sister who had just established herself as a Hollywood star gave his brother advice to try acting and with that, he decided to work at the National Theater in Washington, D.C. the summer before his senior year where he worked as a stagehand and was able to make contacts with some famous actors there.

Upon graduation of high school, he turned down 10 football scholarships to enroll in drama school.

Beatty got his start in film under Elia Kazan's direction and opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass (1961), though he had previous television experience in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959).

At age 30 he achieved critical acclaim and power as a producer and star of Bonnie & Clyde (1967), which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

Subsequent Beatty films include McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974), Shampoo (1975), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). The last film gave him box-office power he hadn't had since Bonnie & Clyde.

He used this to make Reds (1981), a historical epic about famed Communist journalist John Reed in the Russian October Revolution. It won Academy Awards for Best Director (Beatty), Best Cinematography, and Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Maureen Stapleton) while losing Best Picture to Chariots of Fire.

It was nominated for eight other Oscars and joined a handful of films to win Best Director but not Best Picture. Other critically acclaimed works include Bugsy (1991) and Bulworth (1998).

Beatty is the only person other than Orson Welles to receive Oscar nominations in the same year for acting, directing, writing, and producing, and he did it twice, in 1978 and 1981.

Beatty's career as a ladies' man has been marked by a series of well-publicized romances, including Madonna, Isabelle Adjani, Candice Bergen, Leslie Caron, Julie Christie, Joan Collins (to whom Beatty was once engaged), Catherine Deneuve, Janice Dickinson, Faye Dunaway, Britt Ekland, Jane Fonda, Melanie Griffith, Daryl Hannah, Goldie Hawn, Margaux Hemingway, Barbara Hershey, Bianca Jagger, Diane Keaton, Elle Macpherson, Joni Mitchell, Michelle Phillips, Gilda Radner, Diana Ross, Jessica Savitch, Diane Sawyer, Stephanie Seymour, Carly Simon (whose song "You're So Vain" is thought by many to be representing him, although Simon has never confirmed or denied this), Inger Stevens, Barbra Streisand, Liv Ullmann, Natalie Wood (who was rumored to have left her first marriage to Robert Wagner for him, which in reality was completely false. The Wagner-Wood marriage ended after filming of "Splendor In The Grass" was finished, at the time that Beatty was in Europe, shooting his second movie "The Roman Spring Of Mrs. Stone" with Vivien Leigh. Over a year after "Splendor" was finished, Beatty and Wood fell in love and entered a brief relationship, while on promotional tour for their movie), and Susannah York.

He settled down at 55, marrying Annette Bening, his co-star in the gangster film Bugsy, in 1992. They have four children: Kathlyn (b. 1992), Benjamin (b. 1994), Isabel (b. 1997) and Ella Corinne (b. April 8, 2000).

Beatty has played a wide range of characters to critical acclaim and has always involved himself heavily in the production of his movies.

In May 2005, Beatty sued Tribune Co. for $30 million in damages, claiming he still maintains the rights to Dick Tracy (1990). Beatty received the rights in 1985 and is now claiming that 17 years later Tribune moved to reclaim them in violation of various notification procedures. Dick Tracy grossed over $100 million upon its release in 1990, making it the highest grossing film of Beatty's career. There are also rumors that he plans to make a sequel.

In 2006, Beatty was named Honorary Chairman of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, succeeding Marlon Brando. In 2007, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Beatty the Cecil B. DeMille award, presented at the Golden Globe ceremony by Tom Hanks.


Bonnie & Clyde

Because of his work on Bonnie & Clyde (1967), Beatty is generally regarded as the precursor of the New Hollywood generation, which included such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese.

Afraid of being typecast as a milquetoast leading man, and still smarting over the What's New, Pussycat? debacle, where he was outmaneuvered by Woody Allen and eventually forced to leave the production, Beatty produced Bonnie & Clyde out of desperation, and as a means of controlling the projects he was involved with. He hired the untested writers Robert Benton and David Newman, as well as director Arthur Penn, and controlled every facet of production, including cast, script and final cut of the film, as he would throughout the rest of his career, be it as producer/director or only as producer. (It should be noted that, in Bugsy it was Beatty the producer who had final cut on the film, not Barry Levinson, the director.)

Bonnie & Clyde became a blockbuster and cultural touchstone for the youth culture of the era. The film, along with Easy Rider, marked the beginning of the so-called New Hollywood era, where studios gave unprecedented freedom to filmmakers to pursue their own idiosyncratic vision. It is generally agreed that, were it not for Beatty and his idiosyncratic vision expressed in Bonnie & Clyde, which combined humor, violence, and startling realism, studios would never have allowed the New Hollywood filmmakers to make the films for which they are famous, and the stagnation of the film industry during the 1960s would have continued through the 1970s.


Politics

A longtime activist in various liberal political causes, Beatty has, at various times, been extremely active in the presidential politics of the Democratic Party.

In 1968, he hit the campaign trail for the first time, supporting Senator Robert F. Kennedy's bid for his party's presidential nomination. His involvement in the senator's campaign, which included stump speaking and fundraising, was cut short when Kennedy was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan on the same night that he won a crucial primary in California.

Four years later, Beatty joined the campaign of Senator George McGovern as an advisor. As part of the so-called "Malibu Mafia," a group of Hollywood celebrities who were part of the candidate's "inner circle," Beatty gave McGovern's campaign manager Gary Hart advice about the handling of public relations and was instrumental in organizing a series of rock concerts which raised over $1 million for the senator's campaign.

In 1984, and again in 1988, Beatty was to play a similar role in Hart's own presidential campaigns. Hart, who had, by that time, become a senator himself, had become friends with Beatty during the 1972 campaign and the relationship had grown closer during the intervening decade. After Hart's second campaign imploded over allegations that he had committed adultery with a former beauty queen named Donna Rice, a mutual friend of the two explained why they were so close: "Gary always wanted to have Warren's life and Warren always wanted to have Gary's. It was a match made in heaven."

Beatty himself was to become presidential timber during the summer of 1999. After it became clear that the only two contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination were to be Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Beatty made it generally known that he was dissatisfied with the two choices and began to drop hints that he might be willing to seek the nomination himself. After meeting with several powerful liberal activists and influential Democratic operatives, including pollster Pat Caddell, who had worked previously for Hart, McGovern, and President Jimmy Carter, and adman Bill Hillsman, who had worked on the campaigns of Senator Paul Wellstone and Governor Jesse Ventura, Beatty announced in September of 1999 that he would not seek the nomination. However, he continued to be courted by members of a different political party, the Reform Party, who were looking for an alternative to Pat Buchanan, a conservative who had switched parties after losing the Republican Party's presidential nomination for the third time in a row. Despite frequent entreaties by Governor Ventura, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, and syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, Beatty refused to enter the race and Buchanan eventually won the Reform Party's nomination.

Despite his decision not to seek the presidency in 2000, Beatty intimated that he might still run at a later time, telling reporters that he would do so if he thought he "could make an impact on the debate."

As California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's popularity with California voters dropped, Beatty campaigned against the special election in November 2005. He was the keynote speaker at the California Nurses Association's 2005 convention, and recorded radio ads urging voters to reject Schwarzenegger's ballot proposals. The propositions were defeated at the ballot box, increasing speculation that Beatty may run against Schwarzenegger in the 2006 election. But, in early 2006, Beatty announced he would not seek the democratic gubernatorial nomination.


Trivia

Beatty studied acting at Northwestern University but dropped-out after his freshman year.
While at Northwestern University, appeared in the annual Dolphin show.
Was romantically linked to Natalie Wood.
Is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.
He is a good friend and neighbor of both Jack Nicholson and the late Marlon Brando on Mulholland Drive in Beverly Hills. Dustin Hoffman and Garry Shandling are also very good friends of Beatty's.
Beatty graduated from Washington Lee High School in Arlington, Virginia. [1] [2]
Beatty is 6'2".
Made "Top 10 stars of the year" once, 1978.
The political views mentioned by Senator Bulworth (played by Beatty) in Bulworth very closely mirror Beatty's own views in real-life.
Turned down roles in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Way We Were, The Great Gatsby and The Godfather.
The part of Bill in the film Kill Bill was originally written for him. However, Beatty turned down the role because he felt the film was too violent.
Some of his early jobs include a cocktail lounge pianist, construction worker and a "rat catcher" in a Virginia movie theater.
Has starred in two of the biggest flops of all time, Ishtar and Town & Country.
Dated rock photographer Linda McCartney before she met her second husband Beatle Paul McCartney[3]
Warren Beatty's anticipated run for president in 2000 was lampooned by Gary Trudeau in his strip Doonesbury. In it, the character B. D. (Doonesbury) is shocked when his wife Boopsie gets a campaign contribution envelope...the joke being that Beatty could generate millions of dollars by having each of his former conquests send in a dollar to his campaign fund. When the crestfallen B.D. asks her why she dated him, she answered, "Well, it was the '70s. It was kind of like cocaine...you'd meet a girl in the bathroom who'd say, 'So, have you tried Warren Beatty?'

Eric Clapton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Born 30 March 1945 (age 62)
Ripley, Surrey, England
Alias(es) Slowhand (nickname)
Genre(s) Blues
Rock
Psychedelic Rock
Blues Rock
Affiliation(s) Casey Jones and the Engineers
The Roosters
The Yardbirds
John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers
Powerhouse
Cream
The Dirty Mac
Blind Faith
The Plastic Ono Band
Delaney, Bonnie & Friends
Derek and the Dominos
Roger Waters

Notable guitars "Brownie", "Blackie", Fender Stratocaster, Gibson ES-335, Gibson Les Paul, Gibson SG, Gibson Firebird, Gibson Explorer
Years active 1963 - Present
Official site Official website

Eric Patrick Clapton CBE (born 30 March 1945), nicknamed "Slowhand", is a Grammy Award winning English guitarist, singer and composer, who is one of the most successful musicians of the 20th century,[1] garnering an unprecedented three inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Often viewed as one of the greatest guitarists of all time among critics and fans alike, Eric Clapton [2] was ranked 4th in Rolling Stone's list of The Greatest Guitarists of All Time[3] and #53 on their list of the The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[4].

Although Clapton's musical style has varied throughout his career, it has always remained rooted in the blues. Clapton is credited as an innovator in several phases of his career, which have included blues-rock (with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and The Yardbirds) and psychedelic rock (with Cream). Clapton has also achieved great chart success in genres ranging from Delta blues (Me and Mr. Johnson) to pop ("Change the World") and reggae ("I Shot the Sheriff").




Musical career and personal life

Clapton's early days

Eric Clapton was born in Ripley, Surrey, England as the illegitimate son of 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, a 24-year-old soldier. Fryer shipped off to war prior to Clapton's birth and then returned to Canada.

Clapton grew up with his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband Jack, believing they were his parents and that his mother was his older sister. (Their surname was Clapp, which has given rise to the widespread but erroneous belief that Eric's real name is Clapp.) Years later his mother married another Canadian soldier, moved to Canada and left Eric with his grandparents. When Clapton was 9 years old he discovered this family secret, and the experience became a defining moment in his life.[5]

Clapton grew up quiet, shy, lonely and in his words a "nasty kid". During his secondary school years he attended the Hollyfield School in Surbiton. His first job was as a postman. At 13, Clapton received an acoustic guitar for his birthday, but he found learning the instrument so difficult he nearly gave up. Influenced by the blues from an early age, he practiced for hours on end, struggling to learn chords and trying to copy the exact sounds of black blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy that he had on his little Grundig Cub tape recorder. After leaving school Clapton completed a one-year foundation art course in 1962 at the Kingston College of Art, one of the forerunners to Kingston Polytechnic (which then became Kingston University in 1992); he did not go on to undertake an art degree at Kingston. Around this time Clapton began busking around Kingston, Richmond and the West End of London.[6] Clapton joined his first band at 17 and stayed with this band - the early British R&B outfit The Roosters - from January through to August 1963. Clapton did a seven-gig stint with Casey Jones and the Engineers in October 1963[7]


The Yardbirds & John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers


Clapton joined The Yardbirds, a blues-influenced rock and roll band in 1963 and stayed with them until March 1965. Synthesising influences from Chicago blues and leading blues guitarists such as Buddy Guy, Freddie King and B.B. King, Clapton forged a distinctive style and rapidly became one of the most talked-about guitarists in the British music scene.[8] The band initially played Chess/Checker/Vee-Jay blues numbers and began to attract a large cult following when they took over the Rolling Stones' residency at the Crawdaddy Club in Richmond. They toured England with American bluesman Sonny Boy Williamson; a joint LP, recorded in December 1963, was issued belatedly under both their names in 1965. In March 1965, just as Clapton left the band, the Yardbirds had their first major hit, on which Clapton played guitar: "For Your Love."

Still obstinately dedicated to blues music, Clapton took strong exception to the Yardbirds' new pop-oriented direction, partly because "For Your Love" had been written by pop songwriter-for-hire Graham Gouldman, who had also written hits for teen pop outfit Herman's Hermits and harmony pop band The Hollies. Clapton recommended fellow guitarist Jimmy Page as his replacement, but Page was at that time unwilling to relinquish his lucrative career as a freelance studio musician, so Page in turn recommended Clapton's successor, Jeff Beck (although Page would also eventually join the band).[9] While Beck and Page played together in the Yardbirds, the trio of Beck, Page, and Clapton were never in the group together. However, the trio did appear at the 1983 ARMS charity concerts, as well as on the rare blues album Guitar Boogie.

Having quit the Yardbirds in March, Clapton joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers in April 1965. His passionate playing in nightclubs ?- and on the immensely influential album, Blues Breakers ?- established Clapton's name worldwide as a blues guitarist. With his 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar and Marshall amplifier, Clapton's playing by then had inspired a well publicised graffito that deified him with the famous slogan "Clapton is God". The phrase was spray-painted by an admirer on a wall in an Islington Underground station in the fall of 1967. The graffito was captured in a now-famous photograph, in which a dog is urinating on the wall. Clapton is well reported to have been embarrassed by the slogan, saying in The South Bank Show profile of him made in 1987, "I never accepted that I was the greatest guitar player in the world. I always wanted to be the greatest guitar player in the world, but that's an ideal, and I accept it as an ideal." Contrary to a popular myth (perpetuated by, amongst others, the South Bank Show programme itself), "Clapton is God" slogans did not appear all over the place but only on that wall.[10]


Cream

Clapton left the Bluesbreakers in mid-1966 (to be replaced by Peter Green) and then formed Cream, one of the earliest supergroup bands. Cream was also one of the earliest "power trios", with Jack Bruce (also of Manfred Mann, the Bluesbreakers and the Graham Bond Organisation) and Ginger Baker (another member of the GBO). Before the formation of Cream, Clapton was all but unknown in the United States; he left The Yardbirds before "For Your Love" hit the American Top Ten.[11] During his time with Cream, Clapton began to develop as a singer and songwriter, as well as guitarist, though Bruce took most of the lead vocals and wrote the majority of the material with lyricist Pete Brown.[12] Cream's first gig was a low key performance at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester on July 29, 1966 before their full debut at the Windsor Jazz and Blues Festival. Cream established an enduring legend on the high-volume blues jamming and extended solos of their live shows, while their studio work was more sophisticated than original rock.

In early 1967, Clapton's status as Britain's top guitarist was shaken by the arrival of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix attended a performance of the newly formed Cream at the Central London Polytechnic on October 1, 1966, during which Hendrix sat in on a shattering double-timed version of "Killing Floor". Hendrix's early club performances were avidly attended by top UK stars including Clapton, Pete Townshend, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. Hendrix's arrival had an immediate and major effect on the next phase of Clapton's career, although Clapton continued to be recognised in UK music polls as the premier guitarist. Clapton and Hendrix remained friends up until Hendrix's death in 1970. The day before Hendrix's death, Clapton had found and purchased a left handed Stratocaster, and planned on giving it to Hendrix, but never got the chance.[13]

Cream's repertoire varied from pop soul ("I Feel Free") to lengthy blues-based instrumental jams ("Spoonful") and featured Clapton's searing guitar lines, Bruce's soaring vocals and prominent, fluid bass playing, and Baker's powerful, polyrhythmic jazz-influenced drumming.

In a mere three years Cream had immense commercial success, selling 15 million records and playing to standing-room only crowds throughout the U.S. and Europe. They redefined the instrumentalist's role in rock and were one of the first bands to emphasise musical virtuosity, skill and flash. Their U.S. hit singles include "Sunshine Of Your Love" (#5, 1968), "White Room" (#6, 1968) and "Crossroads" (#28, 1969) - a live version of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues."

Although Cream was hailed as one of the greatest groups of its day, and the adulation of Clapton as guitar hero reached new heights, the band was destined to be short-lived. The legendary infighting between Bruce and Baker and growing tensions between all three members eventually led to Cream's demise. Another significant factor was a strongly critical Rolling Stone review of a concert of the group's second headlining U.S. tour, which affected Clapton profoundly. By this time he had also fallen deeply under the spell of the music of The Band after they had released the album Music from Big Pink and began to believe that rock music was heading in a new direction. He was so infatuated with them that he even asked to join them, but was turned down.[14]

Cream's farewell album, Goodbye, featured live performances recorded live at The Forum, Los Angeles, October 19, 1968, and it was released shortly after Cream disbanded in 1968, and also featured the studio single "Badge", co-written by Clapton and George Harrison, whom he had met and become friends with after the Beatles had shared a bill with the Clapton-era Yardbirds at the London Palladium. The close friendship between Clapton and Harrison also resulted in Clapton's playing on Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" from the Beatles' White Album?-according to some, a tactic intended to make the other Beatles take Harrison's song more seriously, but whatever the truth, by all accounts the presence of an outsider, especially of Clapton's calibre, had the effect of bringing harmony to the irritable band. In January 1969, during the making of what would become the Let It Be album, Harrison walked out after an argument and in his absence?-fearing Harrison had gone for good and concerned that the album could not be completed?-John Lennon proposed that Harrison be replaced by Clapton. In the same year of release as the White Album, Harrison released his solo debut Wonderwall Music which became the first of many Harrison solo records to feature Clapton on guitar, who would go largely uncredited due to contractual restraints. The pair would often play live together as each other's guests, right up until Harrison's death in 2001 and the following tribute concert in his name, for which Clapton was musical director.

Since their 1968 breakup, Cream briefly reunited in 1993 to perform at the ceremony inducting them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A full-scale reunion of the legendary trio took place in May 2005, with Clapton, Bruce and Baker playing 4 sold-out concerts at London's Royal Albert Hall (the scene of their 1968 farewell shows) and 3 more at New York's Madison Square Garden that October. Recordings from the London shows were released on CD and DVD in September 2005.


Blind Faith & Delaney and Bonnie and Friends

A desultory spell in a second supergroup, the short-lived Blind Faith (1969), which was composed of Cream drummer Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood of Traffic and Ric Grech of Family, resulted in one LP and one arena-circuit tour. The supergroup debuted before 100,000 fans in London's Hyde Park on June 7, 1969, and began a sold-out American tour in July before its one and only album had been released. The LP Blind Faith was recorded in such haste that side two consisted of just two songs, one of them a 15 minute jam entitled "Do What You Like". Nevertheless, Blind Faith did include two classics: Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home" and Clapton's "Presence of the Lord". The album's jacket image of a topless prepubescent girl was deemed controversial in the U.S. and was replaced by a photograph of the band. Blind Faith dissolved after only a year together, and while Winwood returned to Traffic, by now Clapton was tired of both the spotlight and the hype that had surrounded Cream and Blind Faith, and wanted to make music that more closely resembled that of The Band.

Clapton decided to step into the background for a time, touring as a sideman with the American group Delaney and Bonnie and Friends. He moved to New York in late 1969 and worked with the band through early 1970. He became close friends with Delaney Bramlett, who encouraged him in his singing and writing, which would show determined growth in his next effort.

Using the Bramletts' backing group and an all-star cast of session players (including Leon Russell and Stephen Stills, on whose solo albums Clapton played), he released his first solo album in 1970, fittingly named Eric Clapton, which included the Bramlett composition, "Bottle Of Red Wine", and one of Clapton's best songs from this period, "Let It Rain". It also yielded an unexpected U.S. #18 hit, J.J. Cale's "After Midnight".

Clapton's "between-bands" period from 1969 to 1970 also saw him appear on a large number of other artists' records, ranging from George Harrison's All Things Must Pass (for contractual reasons, Clapton's contributions went uncredited for decades) to The Plastic Ono Band's Live Peace in Toronto 1969 and Dr John's Sun Moon and Herbs.


Derek and the Dominos

Clapton formed a new band which was similarly intended to counteract the 'star' cult that had grown up around him and display Clapton as an equal member of a fully-fledged group.[15] The band was unnamed early on simply called "Eric Clapton and Friends" with its final name, Derek and the Dominos, an accident, by all accounts. Whitlock claims the previous performer, Tony Ashton of Ashton, Gardner and Dyke mispronounced their provisional name of "Eric and the Dynamos" as Derek and the Dominos.[16] While in Clapton's biography a different story emerges claiming Ashton told Clapton to call the band "Del and the Dominos", Del being his nickname for Clapton. Del and Eric were combined and the final name became "Derek and the Dominos."[17]

Clapton's close friendship with George Harrison had brought him into contact with Harrison's wife Pattie Boyd-Harrison, with whom he fell deeply in love. When she turned him down, Clapton's unrequited affections prompted most of the material for the Dominos' album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, most notably the hit single "Layla", inspired by the classical Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi's "The Story of Layla and Majnun", a copy of which his friend Ian Dallas had given him. The book moved Clapton profoundly as it was the tale of a young man who fell hopelessly in love with a beautiful, unavailable woman and who went crazy because he couldn't marry her. Clapton found a strong similarity between the situation of Layla and Majnun and the one between him and Boyd-Harrison.[18]


Working at Criteria Studios in Miami with legendary Atlantic Records producer Tom Dowd, the band recorded a brilliant double-album which is now widely regarded as Clapton's masterpiece. The two parts of "Layla" were recorded in separate sessions: the opening guitar section was recorded first, and for the second section, laid down several months later, drummer Jim Gordon composed and played the elegiac piano part.[19]

The Layla LP was actually recorded by a five-piece version of the group, thanks to the unforeseen inclusion of guitarist Duane Allman of The Allman Brothers Band. A few days into the Layla sessions, Dowd ?- who was also producing the Allmans ?- invited Clapton to an Allman Brothers outdoor concert in Miami. The two guitarists ?- who previously knew each other only by reputation ?- met backstage after the show, and then both bands retired to the studio to jam.[20] Clapton and Allman played all night and became instant friends, and Allman was immediately invited to become the fifth member of The Dominos. (These studio jams were eventually released as part of the 3-CD 20th-anniversary edition of the Layla album.)

When Allman and Clapton met, The Dominos had already recorded three tracks ("I Looked Away", "Bell Bottom Blues" and "Keep On Growing"); Allman debuted on the fourth cut, "Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out", and contributed some of his most sublime slide-guitar playing to the remainder of the LP. The album was heavily blues-influenced and featured a winning combination of the twin guitars of Allman and Clapton, with Allman's incendiary slide-guitar a key ingredient of the sound. Many critics would later notice that Clapton played best when in a band composed of dual guitars; working with another guitarist kept him from getting "sloppy and lazy and this was undeniably the case with Duane Allman."[21] It showcased some of Clapton's strongest material to date, as well as arguably some of his best guitar playing, with Whitlock also contributing several superb numbers, and his powerful, soul-influenced voice.[22]


Tragedy dogged the group throughout its brief career. During the sessions, Clapton was devastated by news of the death of Jimi Hendrix; eight days previously the band had cut a blistering version of "Little Wing" as a tribute to him which was added to the album. One year later, on the eve of the group's first American tour, Duane Allman was killed in a motorcycle accident. Adding to Clapton's woes, the Layla album received only lukewarm reviews on release; Clapton took this personally, accelerating his spiral into drug addiction and depression.[23]

The shattered group undertook a US tour. Despite Clapton's later admission that the tour took place amidst a veritable blizzard of drugs and alcohol, it resulted in the surprisingly strong live double album In Concert.[24] But Derek and the Dominos disintegrated messily in London just as they commenced recording for their second LP. Although Radle would be Clapton's main bass player until the summer of 1979 (Radle died in May 1980 from the effects of alcohol and narcotics), the split between Clapton and Whitlock was apparently a bitter one, and it wasn't until 2003 before they worked together again (Clapton guested on Whitlock's appearance on the Later with Jools Holland show, playing and singing "Bell Bottom Blues", available on a "Later with Jools" DVD). Another tragic footnote to the Dominos story was the fate of drummer Jim Gordon, who was an undiagnosed schizophrenic who some years later during a psychotic episode murdered his mother with a hammer and was confined to 14 years to life imprisonment. Gordon was moved to a mental institution after several years, where he remains today.[25]


Solo career

Despite his success, Clapton's personal life was in a chaotic mess by late 1971. In addition to his (temporarily) unrequited and intense romantic longing for Pattie Boyd-Harrison, he withdrew from recording and touring to isolation in his Surrey, England residence. There he nursed his heroin addiction, resulting in a career hiatus interrupted only by the Concert for Bangladesh in August of 1971 (where he passed out on stage, was revived, and continued the show).[26] In January of 1973, The Who's Pete Townshend organised a comeback concert for Clapton at London's Rainbow Theatre aptly titled the "Rainbow Concert" to help Clapton kick his addiction. Clapton would return the favour by playing 'The Preacher' in Ken Russell's film version of The Who's Tommy in 1975; his appearance in the film (performing "Eyesight To The Blind") is notable for the fact that he is clearly wearing a fake beard in some shots, the result of deciding to shave off his real beard after the initial takes in an attempt to force the director to remove his earlier scene from the movie and leave the set.[27]

By the mid 70's, now partnered with Pattie (they would not actually marry until 1979) and free of heroin (although starting to drink heavily), Clapton put together a strong new touring band that included Radle, Miami guitarist George Terry, drummer Jamie Oldaker and vocalists Yvonne Elliman and Marcy Levy (later better known as Marcella Detroit of 1980s pop duo Shakespear's Sister). With this band Clapton recorded 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), an album with the emphasis on more compact songs; the cover-version of "I Shot The Sheriff" was a major hit and was important in bringing reggae and the music of Bob Marley to a wider audience. The band toured the world and subsequently released the 1975 live LP, E.C. Was Here.

The 1975 album There's One in Every Crowd continued the trend of 461. Its original intended title The World's Greatest Guitar Player (There's One In Every Crowd) was altered, as it was felt the ironic intention would be missed. (Clapton's own original cover artwork, a (self-)portrait of a miserable-looking character with a pint glass, was also replaced by a photograph of Clapton's dog Jeep, apparently with its muzzle on a coffin.)

In 1976, Clapton appeared at The Band's farewell concert on November 26. It was the second farewell concert Clapton had played on that date; eight years earlier, he had played Cream's farewell concert in London. Ironically, it was partially because of The Band's music that Clapton had decided to leave Cream in the first place.

Clapton continued to release albums sporadically and toured regularly, but much of his output from this period was deliberately low-key and failed to find the wide acceptance of his earlier work; highlights of the era include No Reason to Cry, whose collaborators included Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson, and Slowhand, which featured "Wonderful Tonight", another song inspired by Patti Boyd-Harrison, and a second J.J. Cale cover, "Cocaine", which has since become a rock staple.


Controversy

In 1976, Clapton was the centre of controversy and accusations of racism, when he spoke out against increasing immigration during a concert in Birmingham. He commented that England had "...become overcrowded...that England sells itself as the "land of milk and honey" only to turn around and stick its invited immigrants into low paying labour jobs, living in substandard conditions..." Clapton also voiced his support of controversial political candidate Enoch Powell, making references to "a black colony." As a result, it would be a full decade before Clapton was welcome to play in Birmingham again.[citation needed] These comments (along with equally controversial remarks and actions by other artists, such as David Bowie and Siouxsie Sioux) led to the creation of the Rock Against Racism movement in the UK.

Despite his controversial stance, and the comment in a 2004 interview with Uncut magazine "there's no way I could be a racist... it just wouldn't make any sense", Clapton has not made any notable effort to distance himself from the remarks and has denied there was any contradiction between his political views and his career based on an essentially black musical form. In a 1980s interview with Q magazine he defended his position, saying it wasn't racist but instead borne of concern that "...ghettoes would spring up all over England, which they have done."[citation needed] However, in a later interview, although not fully retracting the remarks, he attributed them to his inebriation at the time, a product of his much-publicised alcoholism.

" Some see the current climate as similar to the situation prevailing when Rock Against Racism began in late 1976 [...] A somewhat inebriated Eric Clapton, then considered very much part of the old guard, at a concert in Birmingham, told the audience that the politician Enoch Powell ?- infamous for his "rivers of blood" speech opposing mass immigration ?- was right and that Britain was "overcrowded". [...] A sheepish Clapton was later reported to have explained that he was angry because an "Arab" had felt his wife's bottom. "
?- The Independent (London), "Why they're rocking against racism again", March 22, 2004:

In the late 1980s Clapton added four black musicians to his band: bassist Nathan East, keyboardist Greg Phillinganes, drummer Steve Ferrone and backing singer Katie Kissoon. Whilst Clapton had previously played and recorded with many black musicians (including Buddy Guy, BB King and Robert Cray), and had appeared alongside performers of varying ethnicities at collaborative events (such as The Concert for Bangla Desh), this was the first time Clapton had been in a band in which the official members were not all white. Defenders of Clapton's claim not to be racist also point out that he has dated Afro-Caribbean supermodel Naomi Campbell,[28] and has had a home on the Caribbean island of Antigua for many years.


Comeback

The late 1970s saw Clapton struggle to come to terms with the changes in popular music, and a relapse into alcoholism that eventually saw him hospitalised and then spending a period of convalescence in Antigua, where he would later support the creation of a drugs and alcohol rehabilitation centre, The Crossroads Centre.

In 1981, Clapton was invited by producer Martin Lewis to appear at the Amnesty International benefit The Secret Policeman's Other Ball. Clapton accepted the invitation and teamed up with Jeff Beck to perform a series of duets - reportedly their first-ever billed stage collaboration. Three of the perfomances were released on the album of the show and one of the songs was featured in the film of the show. The performances heralded a return to form and prominence for Clapton in the new decade.

In 1984, he performed on Pink Floyd member Roger Waters's solo album, The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking and went on tour with Waters following the release of the album. Since then Waters and Clapton have had a close relationship, and in 2005 they performed together for the Tsunami Relief Fund and on May 20, 2006 performed with Waters at the Highclere Castle, in aid of the Countryside Alliance, playing two set pieces of "Wish You Were Here" and "Comfortably Numb".

As Clapton came back from his addictions, his album output continued in the 1980s, including two produced with Phil Collins, 1985's Behind the Sun, which produced the hits "Forever Man" and "She's Waiting", and 1986's August.

August, a polished release suffused with Collins's trademark drum/horn sound, became Clapton's biggest seller in the UK to date and matched his highest chart position, number 3. The album's first track, the hit "It's In The Way That You Use It", was also featured in the Tom Cruise-Paul Newman movie The Color of Money. The horn-peppered "Run" echoed Collins' "Sussudio" and rest of the producer's Genesis/solo output, while "Tearing Us Apart" (with Tina Turner) and the bitter "Miss You" echoed Clapton at his angry best.

The period kicked off Clapton's extensive two-year period of touring with Collins and their August collaborates, bassist Nathan East and keyboard player/songwriter Greg Phillinganes. Despite his own earlier battles with the bottle, Clapton also remade "After Midnight" as a single and a promotional track for the Michelob beer brand produced by Anheuser-Busch, which had also marketed earlier songs by Collins and Steve Winwood.

Clapton won more plaudits and a British Academy Television Award for his collaboration with Michael Kamen on the score for the critically-acclaimed 1985 BBC television thriller serial Edge of Darkness.

Clapton also worked on the music for the "Lethal Weapon" motion picture series alongside Michael Kamen and David Sanborn.

In 1989, Clapton's commercial and artistic resurgence finally came full circle with Journeyman, which featured songs in a wide range of styles from blues to jazz, soul and pop and collaborators including George Harrison, Phil Collins, Daryl Hall, Chaka Khan, Mick Jones, David Sanborn and Robert Cray.[29]


Tragedy again

In 1984 Clapton, while still married to Pattie Clapton, had started a relationship with Yvonne Kelly; they had a daughter, Ruth, born in January 1985. Clapton and Yvonne did not make any public announcement about the birth of their daughter. Hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat in 1989 and this resulted in the closure of Sir George Martin and John Burgess's recording studio AIR Montserrat, where Yvonne was Managing Director. Yvonne & Ruth moved back to England, and the myth of Eric's secret daughter was born as a result of newspaper articles. Ruth made a spoken-word appearance on his 1998 album Pilgrim and in 2001 was pictured in the Reptile album artwork). Clapton and Pattie divorced in 1989 following his affair with Italian model Lory Del Santo, who gave birth to his son Conor in August 1986 (the month of his birth prompting the title of the album released that year).

The early 1990s saw tragedy enter Clapton's life again on two occasions. On August 27, 1990 guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, who was touring with Clapton, and two members of their road crew were killed in a helicopter crash between concerts. Then, on March 20, 1991 at 11:00AM, Conor, who was four and a half, died when he fell from the 53rd-story window of his mother's New York City apartment, landing on the roof of an adjacent four-story building. Clapton's grief was heard on the song "Tears in Heaven" (on the soundtrack to the 1991 movie Rush), co-written with Will Jennings, which, like the MTV Unplugged album that followed it, won a Grammy award.


Slowhand re-emerging

While Unplugged featured Clapton playing acoustic guitar, his 1994 album From the Cradle contains new versions of old blues standards highlighted by fine electric guitar playing.

Clapton finished the twentieth century with critically-acclaimed collaborations with Carlos Santana and B. B. King. Clapton's 1996 recording of the Wayne Kirkpatrick/ Gordon Kennedy/Tommy Sims tune "Change the World" (featured in the soundtrack of the movie Phenomenon) won a Grammy award for song of the year in 1997, the same year he recorded Retail Therapy, an album of electronic music with Simon Climie under the pseudonym TDF. The following year, Clapton released the album "Pilgrim", the first record featuring brand new material for almost a decade.[29]

In 1996 Clapton had a relationship with singer/songwriter Sheryl Crow. The couple dated briefly but it is rumoured that Sheryl wrote "My Favorite Mistake" about her relationship with Clapton. They remain friends presently.

In 1999 Clapton, then 54, met 23-year-old graphic artist Melia McEnery in Los Angeles while working on an album with B.B. King. They married in 2002 at St Mary Magdalen church in Clapton's birthplace, Ripley, Surrey, and as of 2005 have three daughters, Julie Rose (2001), Ella May (2003), and Sophie (2005). He wrote the song "Three Little Girls," featured on his 2006 album "The Road to Escondido," about the contentment he has found in his home life with his wife and daughters.

Following the release of the 2001 record Reptile, Eric performed "Layla" and "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the Party at the Palace in 2002 and in November he masterminded The Concert for George at the Royal Albert Hall, a tribute to George Harrison, who had died a year earlier of cancer. The concert featured Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty, and Ravi Shankar, amongst others.

In 2004, Clapton released two records packed full of covers by legendary Bluesman, Robert Johnson. Me & Mr Johnson, contains many delights from the soulful "Love in Vain," to the pacey "Last Fair Deal Going Down," and "They're Red Hot." The second album, Sessions For Robert J, was released in December and comprised of the outtakes from the Me & Mr Johnson.[29] Before his Tour of Japan in 2003, Clapton had stated that his new album would have a definite "rocky" feel but the two Robert Johnson records undoubtedly contradicted this. He later revealed that "when we got stuck or if it wasn't moving fast enough we'd stop and do a Robert Johnson song. That would clear the air and we'd go back and carry on for the new album. As a result, we ended up with a complete Robert Johnson album first, which was released last year as Me And Mr. Johnson."

The same year, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Clapton #53 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[30] On this list, he is the second greatest living guitarist (behind B.B. King).


Back Home, Clapton's first album of new original material in nearly five years, was released on Reprise Records on August 30.

Featuring twelve songs, five of which were penned by Clapton with creative collaborator Simon Climie, "Back Home" also includes "Love Comes To Everyone" by George Harrison, the Spinners' "Love Don't Love Nobody," a rendition of Stevie Wonder and Syreeta Wright's "I'm Going Left," and compositions by Vince Gill, Doyle Bramhall II and others. It was through the writing and recording process, Clapton explained, that the theme of "Back Home" emerged. "One of the earliest statements I made about myself," he revealed, "was back in the late '80s, with 'Journeyman.' This album completes that cycle in terms of talking about my whole journey as an itinerant musician and where I find myself now, starting a new family. That's why I chose the title. It's about coming home and staying home. Even though," he added with a laugh, "I'll be out on the road again next year, playing this music."

In 2006 it was announced that Derek Trucks and Doyle Bramhall II would join Clapton's band for his 2006-2007 world tour. Trucks is the third member of the Allman Brothers Band to support Clapton, the second being keyboardist Chuck Leavell who appeared on the MTV Unplugged album and the 24 Nights performances at the Royal Albert Hall theater of London (RAH) in 1990 and 1991. Support act band leader, Robert Cray regularly joins Eric on stage for "Old Love" which he co-wrote with Eric for the 1989 album "Journeyman" and also, for the encore on "Crossroads". The setlist for the 2006-2007 World Tour has been diversely crafted with compositions that span his entire solo career from "After Midnight" of 1970 "Eric Clapton" LP to "Back Home" from the album of the same name. On May 20, 2006 he performed with a set band consisting of Queen drummer Roger Taylor and ex-Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, at the Highclere Castle, in aid of the Countryside Alliance. On August 13 2006, Clapton made a guest appearance at the Bob Dylan concert in Columbus, Ohio. He guest appeared on three songs of Jimmie Vaughan's opening act.[31]

A collaboration with guitar legend J.J. Cale, titled "The Road to Escondido", was released on November 7, 2006. The 14 track CD was produced and recorded by the duo in August 2005 in California. The resulting music defies being labeled into any one category, but instead finds influence across the spectrum of blues, rock, country and folk. A hybrid sound that is unique musically, while still bearing the signature styles of Cale and Clapton recognised by fans around the world. The songs are warm and rich, with deep flowing rhythms, yet use an economy of words to express much.

In a true collaboration, Cale and Clapton jointly produced and recorded the album, each playing and singing on the tracks. Cale wrote 11 of the songs, Clapton wrote "Three Little Girls," John Mayer and Clapton wrote "Hard To Thrill" and the duo cover the blues classic "Sporting Life Blues." J.J. Cale's touring band accompanies them on the album as well as guest musicians including, Taj Mahal, John Mayer, Derek Trucks, Doyle Bramhall II, Albert Lee, Nathan East, Willie Weeks and Steve Jordan. Particularly special is the involvement of Billy Preston, who donated his classic keyboard talents throughout the album. The album is dedicated to Preston and Clapton's late friend Brian Roylance.

The rights to Clapton's official memoirs, to be written by Christopher Simon Sykes and to be published in 2007, were reportedly sold at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair for USD $4 million.[32] It was announced via the BBC website in October 2006 that Clapton would add JJ Cale's "Cocaine" to his live set, having previously refused to play it. He now sees it as an anti-drugs song and has changed the backing vocals response to "Dirty Cocaine!".


Influences

Clapton has performed songs by myriad artists, most notably Robert Johnson and J.J. Cale. Other artists Clapton has covered include Bob Marley and Bob Dylan. He cites Freddie King, B.B. King, Albert King, Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin and primarily Robert Johnson as major influences on his guitar playing, stating in the liner notes of his Robert Johnson tribute album Me and Mr. Johnson "It is a remarkable thing to have been driven and influenced all of my life by the work of one man... I accept that it has always been the keystone of my musical foundation... I am talking of course about Robert Johnson".

In 1974, Clapton persuaded Freddie King to sign for RSO, Clapton's own record label at the time, and produced the first of King's two albums for the label, Burglar. He has recorded more than six of J.J. Cale's originals and has put out an album with the artist. Other artists Clapton has made collaborations with include Frank Zappa, B.B King, Santana, Ringo Starr, Roger Waters, Bob Marley and The Plastic Ono Band.

Clapton also collaborated with singer/songwriter John Mayer on his 2006 album release, Continuum. Mayer cites Clapton in his liner notes "Eric Clapton knows I steal from him and is still cool with it." Clapton and Mayer wrote several songs together which have yet to be released. Clapton's influence inspired Mayer to write "I Don't Trust Myself with Loving You" which loosely holds characteristics of Clapton's style.


The search for his father

Although Clapton's grandparents had eventually told him the truth about his parentage ?- that he was the illegitimate son of a Canadian serviceman ?- the precise identity of his father remained a mystery for many years. Clapton knew that his father's name was Edward Fryer, but few other details were known. This was a source of disquiet and speculation for Clapton, as witnessed by his 1998 song "My Father's Eyes" in which he writes "How did I get here? When will all my hopes arrive?...When I look in my father's eyes".

A Toronto journalist, named Michael Woloschuk, set about solving the mystery. He researched Canadian Armed Forces service records and tracked-down members of Edward Fryer's family, finally piecing together the story that Clapton's father was Edward Walter Fryer, born 21 March 1920, in Montreal and died 15 May 1985 in North York, Ontario. Fryer was a musician (piano and saxophone) and a lifelong drifter, who was married several times, had several children and apparently never knew that he was the father of Eric Clapton.[33]


Clapton's guitars

Clapton's choice of electric guitars have been as notable as the man himself, and alongside Hank Marvin, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix, Clapton has exerted a crucial and widespread influence in popularising particular models of the electric guitar.

Early on in his career, Clapton used both Gibson and Fender guitars, but became exclusively a Gibson player in mid-1965, when he purchased a used 1960 Gibson Les Paul Standard guitar, which he used on the 1966 album with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and was largely responsible for Gibson's reintroduction of the original Les Paul body style after it was replaced by the Gibson SG.

Early during his stint in Cream, his treasured 1960 Les Paul Standard was stolen, although Clapton continued to play Gibson guitars with Cream and Blind Faith including Les Paul models, a Gibson Firebird and a Gibson ES-335, but his most famous guitar in this period was a 1964 Gibson SG. The guitar was noted for its remarkable, psychedelic appearance. In early 1967, just before their first US promotional tour, Clapton's SG, Bruce's Fender VI and Baker's drum head were repainted in eye-popping psychedelic designs created by the visual art collective known as The Fool.

Clapton played a Les Paul on the Beatles' studio recording of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." He later lent his SG to singer Jackie Lomax, who subsequently sold it to musician Todd Rundgren for US$500 in 1972. Rundgren restored the guitar and nicknamed it "Sunny," after "Sunshine Of Your Love." Rundgren played the guitar extensively on record and in concert in the mid-1970s, eventually retiring it in 1977. He retained it until 2000, when he sold it at an auction for US$150,000.

During Clapton's heroin addiction from 1969 to 1974, he began to sell off his collection of guitars to pay for his drug habit. Seeing Clapton selling his most treasured possessions was one of the reasons Pete Townshend was prompted to help him get over his addiction.

Another moment involving Clapton's guitars and Pete Townshend resulted in Hard Rock Cafe's unique and gigantic collection of memorabilia. In 1971, Clapton, a regular at the original Hard Rock Cafe in Hyde Park, London, gave a signed guitar to the cafe to designate his favourite bar stool. Pete Townshend, in turn, donated one of his own guitars, with a note attached: "Mine's as good as his! Love, Pete." From there, the collection of memorabilia grew, resulting in Hard Rock Cafe's atmosphere.

Later (due to the influence of Jimi Hendrix and fellow Blind Faith bandmate Steve Winwood, and Clapton's love of Buddy Guy's sound), Clapton began using Fender Stratocasters. First was "Brownie" used during the recording of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs which in 1971 became the backup to the most famous of all Clapton's guitars, "Blackie" (a concoction of Clapton's favourite parts from several other Strats), which he used until 1985 when it wore out.

In 1988 Clapton, along with fellow Strat player Yngwie Malmsteen, was honoured by Fender with the introduction of his signature Eric Clapton Stratocaster. These were the first two artist models in the Stratocaster range and since then the artist series has grown to include models inspired by both Clapton's contemporaries such as Mark Knopfler, Jeff Beck and those who have influenced him such as Buddy Guy. The late Stevie Ray Vaughan also has an artist series model. Clapton has also been honoured with a signature-model acoustic guitar made by the famous American firm of C.F. Martin & Co..

In 1999, Clapton auctioned off some of his guitar collection to raise over $5 million for continuing support of Crossroads Centre in Antigua, which he founded in 1997. The Crossroads Centre is a treatment base for addictive disorders like drugs and alcohol. In 2004, Clapton organised and participated in the Crossroads Guitar Festival to benefit the Centre. A second guitar auction, including the cream of Clapton's collection--as well as guitars donated by famous friends, was also held on June 24, 2004. The total revenue garnered by this auction at Christie's was US $7,438,624.


Other media appearances

Clapton frequently appears as a guest on the albums of other musicians. For example, he is credited on Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms album, as he lent Mark Knopfler one of his guitars for the album. He also played lead guitar on The Pros and Cons of Hitch Hiking, Roger Waters' debut solo album after leaving Pink Floyd. Another media appearance is on Toots and the Maytals album True Love where he played guitar on the track pressure drop.

In March 2007, Clapton appeared in an advertisement[34] for RealNetwork's Rhapsody (online music service).

Celine Dion
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information

Birth name Céline Marie Claudette Dion
Born March 30, 1968 (age 39)
Origin Charlemagne, Quebec, Canada
Genre(s) Pop
Classical
Adult Contemporary
Soft Rock
Occupation(s) Singer, vocalist
Years active 1981-present
Label(s) Epic Records(1990 -present)
Website CelineDion.com

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, OC OQ (born March 30, 1968) is a Canadian Grammy and Juno award winning pop singer and occasional songwriter.[1] Born to a large, impoverished family in Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion became a young star in francophone Canada after her manager and future husband, René Angélil, mortgaged his home to finance her first record. She later gained recognition in parts of Europe and Asia after she won both the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival and the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest.

In 1990 Dion established a foothold in the anglophone music market with the release of Unison, published by Epic Records. During the 1990s, she achieved worldwide fame and success with several English and French records, of which her most successful were Falling into You (1996), and "My Heart Will Go On" (1998) the theme to the 1997 film Titanic. In 1999 she announced a break from entertainment in order to focus on her husband, who was diagnosed with throat cancer.

Three years later, Dion returned to the music scene with the release of A New Day Has Come. By 2004 she had accumulated record sales of 175 million, and was presented with the Chopard Diamond Award from the World Music Awards show for becoming the Best-selling Female Artist in the World.[2] As of 2003, Dion has performed nightly in her show A New Day... at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, under a contract that extends through December 2007. Dion's music has been influenced by various genres, which range from pop and rock to gospel and classical, and she is noted for her technically skilled and powerful vocals.[3]



Childhood and early career

The youngest of fourteen children born to Adhémar Dion and Thérèse Tanguay, Céline Dion was raised a Roman Catholic in a poverty-stricken but happy home in Charlemagne, a small town about thirty miles from Montreal. She grew up singing with her siblings in her parents' small piano bar, 'Le Vieux Baril,' and had always dreamed of being a performer: in a 1994 interview with People magazine, she recalled, "I missed my family and my home, but I don't regret having lost my adolescence. I had one dream: I wanted to be a singer." [4]

At age twelve Dion collaborated with her mother and her brother Jacques to compose her first song, "Ce N'Était Qu'un Rêve" ("It Was Only a Dream"). Her brother Michel sent the recording to music manager René Angélil, whose name he discovered on the back of a Ginette Reno album. Angélil was brought to tears by Dion's voice and decided to make her a star. He mortgaged his home to fund her first record, "La Voix du Bon Dieu" (a play on words "The Voice of God/The Road to God," 1981), which became a local number-one record and made Dion an instant star in Quebec. Her popularity spread to other parts of the world when she competed in the 1982 Yamaha World Popular Song Festival in Tokyo, Japan, and won the musician's award for "Top Performer" as well as the gold medal for "Best Song" with "Tellement J'Ai d'Amour Pour Toi" ("I Have So Much Love for You"). By 1983 in addition to becoming the first Canadian artist to receive a gold record in France for the single "D'Amour Ou d'Amitié" ("Of Love or of Friendship"), Dion had also won several Félix awards, including "Best Female performer" and "Discovery of the year." Further success in Europe, Asia, and Australia came when Dion represented Switzerland in the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest with the song "Ne Partez Pas Sans Moi" ("Don't Go Without Me") and won the contest in Dublin, Ireland. However, American success was yet to come, partly because she was exclusively a francophone artist.

At eighteen, after seeing a Michael Jackson performance, Dion told Angélil that she wanted to be a star like Jackson.[5] Though confident in her talent, Angelil realized that her image needed to be changed in order for her to be marketed worldwide. Dion withdrew from the spotlight for a number of months, during which she underwent a physical makeover. Finally, Dion was sent to the École Berlitz School in 1989 to polish her English and interviewing skills. This marked the start of her anglophone career.


Music and recording career

1990-1992: Career breakthrough

A year after she learned English, Dion made an attempt at breaking into the anglophone market with Unison (1990). She incorporated the help of many established musicians, including Canadian producer David Foster and Vito Luprano. The album was largely influenced by 1980s soft rock that was fit for the adult contemporary radio format. Unison hit the right notes with critics: Jim Faber of Entertainment Weekly wrote that Dion's vocals were "tastefully unadorned," and that she never attempted to "bring off styles that are beyond her."[6] Stephen Erlewine of All Music Guide declared it as "a fine, sophisticated American debut."[7] Singles from the album included "(If There Was) Any Other Way," "The Last to Know," "Unison," and "Where Does My Heart Beat Now," a mid-tempo soft-rock ballad which featured an electric guitar. The latter became her first single to chart on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number four. The album established Dion as a rising singer in the United States, and across Continental Europe and Asia. In 1991, Dion was also a soloist in "Voices That Care", a tribute to American troops fighting in Operation Desert Storm; the single reached number 11 in the U.S.

While Dion was experiencing rising success in the U.S., her French fans in Canada criticized her for neglecting them. At the Felix Awards show, after winning "English Artist of the Year," she tried to reconnect with her French fans by refusing the award on the ground that she was ?- and will always be ?- a French, and not an English, artist.[8][9]

Dion's real international breakthrough came when she paired with Peabo Bryson to record the title track to Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast (1991). The song captured a musical style that Dion would utilize in the future: sweeping, classically influenced ballads with soft instrumentation. Both a critical and commercial hit, the song became her second U.S. top ten single, and won the Academy Award for Best Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. "Beauty and the Beast" was featured on Dion's 1992 eponymous album, which, like her debut, had a strong rock influence combined with elements of soul and classical music. Owing to the success of the lead-off single and her collaboration with Foster and Diane Warren, the album was as well received as Unison. Other singles that achieved moderate success included "If You Asked Me To" (a cover of Patti LaBelle's song from the 1989 movie Licence to Kill) which peaked at number four on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, the gospel-tinged "Love Can Move Mountains," and "Nothing Broken but My Heart." As with Dion's earlier releases, the album had an overtone of love.

By 1992, Unison, Céline Dion and media appearances had propelled Dion to superstardom in the North America. She had achieved one of her main objectives: wedging her way into the anglophone market and achieving fame. Apart from her rising success, there were also changes in Dion's personal life, as Angélil made the transition from manager to lover. However, the relationship was kept a secret as they both feared that the public would find the twenty-six-year difference between their ages incongruous.


1993-1995: Popularity established


In 1993, Dion publicly indicated her feelings for her manager by declaring him "the colour of [her] love" in the dedication section of her third anglophone album The Colour of My Love. However, instead of criticizing their relationship as Dion had feared, fans embraced the couple. Eventually, Angélil and Dion married in an extravagant wedding ceremony in December 1994.

As it was dedicated to her manager, the album's motif focused on love and romance. The album spawned Dion's first U.S. number-one single "The Power of Love" (a remake of Jennifer Rush's 1985 hit). However, subsequent singles such as "When I Fall in Love" (a duet with Clive Griffin), "Misled", and "Think Twice" failed to reach the top twenty on the Billboard charts. The album proved more successful in Europe, and in particular the United Kingdom, where both the album and "Think Twice" simultaneously occupied the top of the respective British charts for five consecutive weeks. "Think Twice," which remained at number one for seven weeks, went on to become the fourth single by a female artist to sell in excess of one million copies in the UK.[10]


The video for "Next Plane Out" depicts Dion and her lover on the beach in the sunset. It started a trend of typical and clichéd love ballads, lyrics and videos.Dion kept to her French roots, and continued to release many Francophone recordings between each English record: Dion Chante Plamondon (1991); À l'Olympia (1994), a live album that was recorded during one of Dion's concerts at the Olympia Theatre in Paris; and D'eux (1995 ?- also known as The French Album in the United States), which would go on to become the best-selling French album of all time. As these albums were in French, the worldwide commercial success was limited. However, Dion's Francophone fans embraced each release, and generally, they achieved more credibility than her anglophone works.

The mid-1990s was a transitional period for Dion's musical style, as she slowly moved away from strong rock influences and transitioned into a more pop and soul style (though the electric guitar remained a central part of her music.) Her songs began with more delicate melodies that used softer instrumentations, and built up to strong climaxes, over which her vocals could be displayed. This new sound received mixed reviews from critics, with Arion Berger of Entertainment Weekly accusing her of preferring vocal acrobatics over dynamics, and embarking on a trend of uninspiring, "crowd-pleasing ballads."[11] Resultantly, she earned frequent comparisons to artists such as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey.[12] There were also signs that her work was becoming more clichéd: critically, The Colour of My Love was not consistent with earlier works. However, while critical praise declined, Dion's releases performed increasingly well on the international charts, and in 1996, she won the World Music Award for "World's Best-Selling Canadian Female Recording Artist of the Year" ?- a title she had earned twice before. By the mid-1990s, she had established herself as one of the best-selling artists in the world, among female performers such as Carey and Houston.


1996-1999: Worldwide commercial success

Falling into You (1996) presented Dion at the height of her popularity, and showed a further progression of her music. In an attempt to reach a wider audience, the album combined many elements (ornate orchestral frills and African chanting), and instruments like the violin, Spanish guitar, trombone, the cavaquinho, and saxophone created a new sound.[13] The singles encompassed a variety of musical styles: the title track and "River Deep, Mountain High" (a Tina Turner cover) made prominent use of percussion instruments; "It's All Coming Back to Me Now" (a remake of Jim Steinman's song) and a remake of Eric Carmen's "All by Myself" kept their soft-rock atmosphere, but were combined with the classical sound of the piano; and "Because You Loved Me," written by Diane Warren, was a maudlin ballad that served as the theme to the 1996 film Up Close & Personal. The song spent two weeks at number one in Canada and six weeks at number one in the United States.

Falling into You was met with generally favorable reviews. While Dan Leroy wrote that it was not very different from her previous work,[14] and Stephen Holden of The New York Times and Elysa Gardner of Los Angeles Times wrote that the album was formulaic,[15][16] other critics such as Chuck Eddy, Erlewine and Daniel Durchholz lavished the album as "compelling," "passionate," "stylish," "elegant," and "remarkably well-crafted."[17][13] Falling Into You became Dion's most critically and commercially successful album: it topped the charts in eleven countries and became one of the best-selling albums of all time.[18] It also won Grammy Awards for Best Pop Album, and the academy's highest honor Album of the Year. Dion's status on the world stage was further solidified when she was asked to perform "The Power of the Dream" at the opening ceremonies of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. In March 1996, Céline launched the Falling into You Tour in support of her new album, giving concerts around the world for over a year.

Dion followed Falling into You with Let's Talk About Love (1997), which she publicized as its sequel. The recording process took place in London, New York City, and Los Angeles, and featured a host of special guests: Barbra Streisand on "Tell Him;" the Bee Gees on "Immortality;" and world-renowned tenor Luciano Pavarotti on "I Hate You Then I Love You." Other musicians included Carole King, Sir George Martin, and Jamaican singer Diana King, who added a reggae tinge to "Treat Her Like a Lady." As the name suggests, the album had the same theme as Dion's preceding albums: "love." However, emphasis was also placed on "brotherly love" with "Where Is the Love" and "Let's Talk About Love". The most successful single from the album became the classically influenced ballad "My Heart Will Go On," which was composed by James Horner, and produced by Horner and Walter Afanasieff. Serving as the love theme for the 1997 blockbuster film Titanic, the song topped the charts in many countries across the world, and has become Dion's signature song. In support of her album, Dion embarked on the Let's Talk About Love Tour between 1998 and 1999, including shows with magician/comedian Jamie Porter. Comments were mostly favorable, but much focus was placed on her on-stage movements, which often consisted of chest-pounding, backward bending, and other flashy movements. While some people found these bombastic and even silly, others simply saw it as another extension of Dion's commanding stage presence.

Dion ended the 1990s with two more successful albums: the Christmas album, These Are Special Times (1998), and All the Way... A Decade of Song (1999). On These Are Special Times, Dion had a hand in writing some of the material. The album was her most classically influenced yet, with orchestral arrangements found on all tracks. "I'm Your Angel," a duet with R. Kelly, became Dion's fourth and final U.S. number one single, and another hit single across the world. All the Way... A Decade of Song was a compilation of her most successful hits coupled with seven new songs, including the leadoff single "That's the Way It Is," a cover of Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," and "All the Way," a duet with Frank Sinatra.


"My Heart Will Go On" became one of the decade's biggest hits, winning four Grammy awards including Record and Song of the Year. Audio sample (help·info)By the end of the 1990s Céline Dion had sold nearly 140 million albums worldwide, and had won a slew of industry awards. Her status as one of the biggest divas of contemporary music was further solidified when she was asked to perform on VH1's Divas Live special in 1998, with superstars Aretha Franklin, Gloria Estefan, Shania Twain, and Mariah Carey. That year she also received two of the highest honors from her home country: "Officer of the Order of Canada for Outstanding Contribution to the World of Contemporary Music" and "Officer of the National Order of Quebec." A year later she was inducted into the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and was honoured with a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.[19] She also won the Grammy awards for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance" and the most coveted "Record of the Year" for "My Heart Will Go On" (the song won four awards, but two were presented to the songwriters).

Compared to her debut, both the quality and sound of Dion's music had also changed significantly. The soft-rock influences on her earlier releases were no longer prominent; they were replaced by more soul/adult contemporary styles. However, the theme of "love" remained in all her releases, and this led to many critics dismissing her work as banal. [20] In a scathing review of Let's Talk About Love, Rob O'Connor wrote:

" What never ceases to amaze me is how the trite-est, most cliché-ridden music often takes an assembly-line of lauded music industry professionals to perfect... Sinking ships are what I imagine as this tune ["My Heart Will Go On"] plows onward of four-plus minutes, and this album feels as if were never to end. Is it no wonder why I have such fears of going to the dentist?" [21] "

Dion was also criticized for some of her remakes and duets: "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" and "All the Way" were described as disastrous and "creepy" by Allison Stewart of The Chicago Tribune and Erlwine of All Music Guide.[22] Even though she was still praised for her vocal abilities (Gardner of L.A Times called her voice a "technical marvel,")[16] the much favored vocal restraint heard on her early releases had also waned, and Steve Dollar, in reviewing These Are Special Times wrote that Dion was a "vocal Olympian for whom there ain't no mountain?-or scale?-high enough."[23]


2000-2002: Career break

After releasing and promoting thirteen albums during the 1990s, Dion felt that she needed to settle down, and announced on her final album, All the Way... A Decade of Song, that she had experienced many things and needed to take a step back and enjoy life. Angélil's diagnosis with throat cancer also prompted her to retire. After undergoing fertility treatments, she gave birth to a son, René-Charles Dion Angélil, on January 25, 2001.

While on break, Dion was unable to escape the spotlight. In late 2002, the National Enquirer published a false story about the singer. Brandishing a picture of Dion and her husband, the magazine misquoted Dion, printing the headline: "Céline ?- 'I'm Pregnant With Twins!'" Dion later sued the magazine for over twenty million dollars. The editors of the Enquirer printed an apology and a full retraction to Dion in the next issue, and donated money to the American Cancer Society in honor of Dion and her husband.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Dion returned to the music scene and in a televised performance sang "God Bless America" at the benefit concert America: A Tribute to Heroes. Chuck Taylor of Billboard wrote that "the performance... brings to mind what has made her one of the celebrated vocalists of our time: the ability to render emotion that shakes the soul. Affecting, meaningful, and filled with grace, this is a musical reflection to share with all of us still searching for ways to cope."[24]


2002-2003: Return to music

Dion's aptly titled A New Day Has Come, released in March 2002, ended her two-year break from the music industry. The theme of the album was "new beginnings," and even though it did not incorporate many genres, a few dance-pop tunes ("I'm Alive" and "Sorry for Love") could be found among a throng of adult contemporary tracks. Shania Twain and Chantal Kreviazuk also appeared on the album and sang backing vocals. The album established a more mature side of Dion with the songs "A New Day Has Come," "Nature Boy" and "Goodbye's (The Saddest Word)." This change was as a result of her new-found maternal responsibilities, because, in her own words, "becoming a mother makes you a grown-up."[25] A New Day Has Come restarted her commercial success as it topped the charts in seventeen countries. The album featured the title track, "A New Day Has Come," and a cover of Etta James's "At Last." A CBS television concert helped to promote the album, during which Dion performed with Destiny's Child and Brian McKnight. While the album achieved success, critical comments suggested that it was "forgettable" and the lyrics were "lifeless." Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone magazine wrote that Dion's music had not matured and that she still suffered from mediocre vocal talent.[26] Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine called the album "a lengthy collection of drippy, gooey pop fluffer-nutter."[27]


The upbeat tempo of "One Heart" and the bright colours and "party" style of the music video were a new direction to Céline Dion's work.Drawing inspiration from personal experiences, Dion released One Heart (2003), an album that encapsulated her appreciation for the joys of life.[28] The album largely consisted of dance music ?- a deviation from the soaring, melodramatic ballads, for which she had once been given mixed reception. Although it achieved moderate success, One Heart hinted that Dion was unable to overcome the creative wall that she had hit, and words such as "predictable" and "banal" appeared even in the most lenient reviews.[29][30] A cover of Roy Orbison's "I Drove All Night," released to launch her new advertising campaign with Chrysler, incorporated dance-pop and rock and roll and was called reminiscent of Cher's 1980s work, but it was dismissed as Dion trying to please her sponsors.[31]

By the mid 2000s Dion's music had changed to the point where her releases possessed maternal overtones: Miracle (2004), a multimedia project conceived by Dion and photographer Anne Geddes, had a theme centering on babies and motherhood. The album was saturated with lullabies and other songs of maternal love and inspiration, the two most popular being covers of Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy." The reviews for Miracle were generally weak: while Charles Taylor of Billboard magazine wrote that the single "Beautiful Boy" was "an unexpected gem" and called Dion "a timeless, enormously versatile artist,"[32] Nancy Miller of Entertainment Weekly wrote: "the whole earth-mama act is just opportunism."[33]


The Francophone album 1 Fille & 4 Types (One Girl and Four Guys, 2003), fared better than her first two comebacks, and showed Dion trying to distance herself from the "diva" image. She recruited Jean-Jacques Goldman, Gildas Arzel, Eric Benzi, and Jacques Veneruso, with whom she had previously worked on S'il Suffisait d'Aimer and D'eux to help. The album's musical theme was fun and relaxation, and Dion herself has referred to it as "the album of pleasure." The cover showed Dion in a simple and relaxed manner, a contrast to the choreographed poses usually found on her album covers. The album achieved relative critical success: reviewer Stephen Erlwine of "All Music Guide" wrote that Dion was "getting back to pop basics and performing at a level unheard in a while."[34]

Though her albums were relatively successful, signs of a decline began to appear in the poorer critical reception of The Collector's Series Volume One (2000), A New Day Has Come (2002), and One Heart (2003). The mass appeal of Dion's later works had declined due to the nature of the themes. Her songs received less airplay as radio became less embracing of balladeers like Dion, Carey and Houston, and now focused on more up-tempo, R&B/Hip-hop songs.[35] However, by 2005 Dion had accumulated sales of over 175 million records, and received the Chopard Diamond World Music award for becoming the best-selling female artist in the world.


2003-present: A New Day... Live in Las Vegas

In early 2002, Dion announced a three-year, 600-show contract to appear five nights a week in an entertainment extravaganza, A New Day..., at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas. This move was seen as "one of the smartest business decisions in years by any major recording artist" given the poor performance of her current releases.[36]

She conceived the idea for the show after seeing O by Dragone early in her break from recording, and began on March 25, 2003, in a 4000-seat arena designed for her show. The show, put together by Franco Dragone, is a combination of dance, music, and visual effects. It includes Dion performing her biggest hits against an array of dancers and special effects.

Reviewer Mike Weatherford felt that, at first, Dion was not as relaxed as she should be, and at times, it was hard to find the singer among the excessive stage ornamentations and dancers. However, he noted that the show has become more enjoyable, due to Dion's improved stage-presence and simpler costumes.[37] The show has also been well-received by audiences, despite the complaints of expensive tickets; the show has sold out almost every night since its 2003 opening. According to Pollstar, Dion had sold 322,000 tickets and grossed $43.9 million in the first half of 2005, and by July 2005, she had sold out 315 out of 384 shows.[38] By the end of 2005, Dion grossed over $76 million, placing sixth on Billboard's Money Makers list for 2005.[39] Because of the show's success, Dion's contract was extended into 2007 for an undisclosed sum. On January 5, 2007 it was announced that the show would be ending in December 2007, with ticket for the period after October 2007 going on sale from March 1[40]

In 2005, Dion released her first comprehensive greatest hits album in French, On Ne Change Pas, which features three new songs, including a duet with Il Divo called "I Believe in You". A New Day... was the 6th biggest selling tour in America in 2006. [41]

In February 2007, Dion made her latest contribution to a tribute album, the song "I Knew I Loved You" (based on a theme from Once Upon a Time in America), the centerpiece track on the CD We All Love Ennio Morricone. She went on to perform this song at the 2007 Academy Awards to honor Ennio Morricone.

Dion's next French language album D'Elles is scheduled to be released on May 21, 2007 in selected European countries and in Brazil. It will be released in Canada the following day. The first single "Et S'il N'en Restait Qu'une (Je Serais Celle-là)" premiered on the radio in Francophone countries on February 14, 2007.[42]

During an interview on the 2007 academy awards red carpet with Ryan Seacrest for E!, Ryan asked Dion about her plans after her show ends. Dion advised her "intention was to have a short rest and a possible tour of the world" before going onto have other baby.[citation needed]


Image

Dion is one of pop music's most respected singers, and her vocal talents and expansive, coloratura soprano vocal range[43] has influenced the singing styles of others such as Jessica Simpson and Christina Aguilera. In MTV's "22 Greatest Voices in Music" countdown, she placed ninth (sixth for a female), and she was also placed fourth in Cove Magazine's list of "The 100 Outstanding Pop Vocalists."[3] In MuchMoreMusic's "Top 20 Divine Divas" program Dion ranked at number three, behind Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. They also described her voice as "one of the most powerful vocal workouts ever to be recorded."[44]

While industry officials note her for her vocal talents, Dion was often the subject of media ridicule, and was frequently impersonated on shows like MADtv, Saturday Night Live and South Park for her Quebecois accent, as well as her conservative nature and on-stage movements. She is also heavily mocked in her home country of Canada on popular shows Royal Canadian Air Farce and This Hour Has 22 Minutes. However, Dion seems unabashed by media ridicule: "I'm flattered when they take the time to impersonate you," she says. "I think it's a good sign."[45] She even invited Ana Gasteyer, who parodied her on SNL, to appear on stage during one of her performances.

Dion is rarely the center of media controversies. However, in 2005, following the Hurricane Katrina disaster, she appeared on Larry King Live and tearfully criticized U.S. President George W. Bush regarding the Iraq War and his slow response in aiding the victims of Hurricane Katrina: "How come it's so easy to send planes in another country, to kill everyone in a second, to destroy lives? We need to be there right now to rescue the rest of the people."[46] She later claimed, "When I do interviews with Larry King or the big TV shows like that, they put you on the spot, which is very difficult. I do have an opinion, but I'm a singer. I'm not a politician."[47]


Other activities

Dion became an entrepreneur with the establishment of her franchise restaurant "Nickels" in 1990. She has since divested her interests in the chain and was no longer affiliated with Nickels as of 1997. She also has a range of eyewear and a line of perfume, manufactured by Coty, Inc.. In October 2004, Canada's national air carrier Air Canada hired Dion as part of the new promotional campaign as the airline unveiled new in-flight service products and new aircraft livery. "You and I," the theme song sung by Dion, was written by an advertising executive working for Air Canada.

Dion has actively supported many charity organizations worldwide. She has promoted the Canadian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CCFF) since 1982 and became the foundation's National Celebrity Patron in 1993. She has an emotional attachment to the foundation; her niece Karine succumbed to the disease at the age of sixteen. In 2003, Dion joined a number of other celebrities, athletes and politicians including Josh Groban and Yolanda Adams to support "World Children's Day", a global fundraising effort sponsored by McDonald's. The effort raised money from over 100 countries and benefited many orphanages and children's health organizations. Dion has also been a major supporter of the T.J. Martell Foundation, the Diana Princess Of Wales Memorial Fund, and many health and education campaigns.

Dion has donated proceeds from selected performances of her Las Vegas show to various charitable causes.