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Alec Guinness
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born April 2, 1914
Marylebone, London, England
Died August 5, 2000 (age 86)
Midhurst, Sussex, England
Notable roles Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai
John le Carré's "George Smiley" in "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smiley's People"
The D'Ascoyne Family in Kind Hearts and Coronets
Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars
Academy Awards

1957 Academy Award for Best Actor for The Bridge on the River Kwai

Sir Alec Guinness CH CBE (April 2, 1914 - August 5, 2000) was an Academy Award and Tony Award-winning English actor who became one of the most versatile and best-loved performers of his generation.




Life and Career

He was born in London, England, allegedly as Alec Guinness de Cuffe, although what is written on his birth certificate, which reportedly lacked a father's name, is not known. His mother's maiden name was "Agnes Cuff". She would later marry Alec's stepfather, a mentally ill soldier from the Anglo-Irish War who was suffering from what would today be known as post-traumatic stress disorder. It is rumoured that Guinness' birth father was a wealthy businessman whom he met once.

Guinness first worked writing copy for advertising before making his debut at the Albery Theatre in 1936 at the age of 22, playing the role of Osric in John Gielgud's wildly successful production of Hamlet. During this time he worked with many actors and actresses who would become his friends and frequent co-stars in the future, including John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Anthony Quayle, and Jack Hawkins.

Guinness continued working in Shakespeare throughout his career. In 1937 he played the role of Aumerle in Richard II and Lorenzo in The Merchant of Venice under the direction of John Gielgud. He starred in a 1938 production of Hamlet which won him acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. He also appeared as Romeo in a production of Romeo and Juliet (1939), Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night and Chorus in Henry V in 1937, both opposite Laurence Olivier, and Ferdinand in The Tempest, opposite Gielgud as Prospero.

In 1939 he adapted Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations for the stage, playing the part of Herbert Pocket. The play was a success; one of its viewers was a young British film editor named David Lean, who had Guinness reprise his role in the former's 1946's film adaptation of the play.

He married the artist, playwright, and actress, Merula Salaman, a British Jew, in 1938, and they had a son in 1940, Matthew Guinness, who later became an actor.

Alec Guinness served in the Royal Navy throughout World War II, serving first as a seaman in 1941 and being commissioned the following year. While in the Navy, Guinness for a while planned on becoming an Anglican priest. He commanded a landing craft taking part in the invasion of Sicily and Elba and later ferried supplies to the Yugoslav partisans. During the war, he appeared in Terence Rattigan's West End Play for Bomber Command, Flare Path. He returned to the Old Vic in 1946 and stayed through 1948, playing Abel Drugger in Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, the Fool in King Lear opposite Laurence Olivier in the title role, DeGuiche in Cyrano de Bergerac opposite Ralph Richardson in the title role, and finally starring in an Old Vic production himself as Shakespeare's Richard II. After leaving the Old Vic, he had a success as the Uninvited Guest in the Broadway production of T.S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party (1950, revived at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968), but his second attempt at the title role of Hamlet, this time under his own direction at the New Theatre (1951), proved a major theatrical disaster.

He was initially mainly associated with the Ealing comedies, and particularly for playing eight different characters in Kind Hearts and Coronets. Other films from this period included The Lavender Hill Mob, The Ladykillers, and The Man in the White Suit. In 1952, director Ronald Neame cast Guinness in his first romantic lead role, opposite Petula Clark in The Card.

Invited by his friend Tyrone Guthrie to join in the premier season of the Stratford Festival of Canada, Guinness lived for a brief time in Stratford, Ontario. On 13 July 1953, Guinness spoke the first lines of the first play produced by the festival (Shakespeare's Richard III): "Now is the winter of our discontent/Made glorious summer by this son of York."

In 1954, during the shooting of the film Father Brown, he and his wife converted to Roman Catholicism and became devout regular church-goers for the rest of their lives. Their son Matthew had converted some time earlier[1] [2]..

Guinness was also a talented dramatic and character actor, and won particular acclaim for his work with director David Lean. After appearing in Lean's Great Expectations and Oliver Twist, he was given a starring role (opposite William Holden) in Bridge on the River Kwai. For his performance as Colonel Nicholson, the unyielding British POW leader, Guinness won an Academy Award for Best Actor. Despite a difficult and often hostile relationship, Lean, referring to Guinness as "my good luck charm", continued to cast Guinness in character roles in his later films: Lawrence of Arabia (as Arab leader Prince Feisal), Doctor Zhivago (as the title character's half-brother, Bolshevik leader Yevgraf), and A Passage to India (as Indian mystic Godbole). (He was also offered a role in Lean's adaptation of Ryan's Daughter (1970), but declined.) Other famous roles of this time period included The Swan (1956) (with Grace Kelly in her last film role), The Horse's Mouth (1958) in which Guinness played the part of drunklen painter Gulley Jimson as well as contributing the screenplay, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Tunes of Glory (1960), Damn the Defiant! (1962), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Scrooge (1970), and the title role in Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) (which he considered his best film performance).

Guinness was oft-criticized in the '60s for his choice of film roles, and was accused of choosing parts for money rather than quality. He turned down roles in many well-received films - most notably The Spy Who Came in From the Cold - for ones that paid him better, although he won a Tony Award for his Broadway triumph as poet Dylan Thomas in Dylan. He followed this success up by playing the title role in Macbeth opposite Simone Signoret at the Royal Court Theatre in 1966, one of the most conspicuous failures of his career.

From the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances, including the part of George Smiley in the serializations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People. Le Carré was so impressed by Guinness's performance as Smiley that he based his characterization of Smiley in subsequent novels on Guinness. One of his last appearances was in the acclaimed BBC drama Eskimo Day.

His role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original Star Wars trilogy brought him worldwide recognition by a new generation. Guinness agreed to take the part on the condition that he would not have to do publicity to promote the film. He was also one of the few cast members who believed that the film would be a box office hit and negotiated a percentage deal that made him very wealthy in later life.

However, he was never happy with being identified with the part, and expressed great dismay at what he perceived to be the obsessive, out-of-touch-with-reality fan following the Star Wars trilogy attracted. Obi-Wan's death was at his request, in order to limit his subsequent role in the series, as he couldn't face saying "those bloody awful lines" (however, in the DVD commentary of Star Wars: A New Hope, Lucas mentions that Guinness wasn't happy about the script re-write in which Obi-Wan is killed). He once said in an interview that he "shrivelled up" every time Star Wars was mentioned to him. However, despite his dislike of the films, fellow cast members Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, and Carrie Fisher (as well as director George Lucas) have always spoken highly of his courtesy and professionalism on and off the set of the films (including, reportedly, helping Ford find an apartment to live in during the film's shooting in England), and did not let his evident dislike of the material show to his co-stars during filming. In fact, Lucas credited him with inspiring fellow cast and crew to work harder during filming, saying he was instrumental in helping to complete filming of the movies.

Guinness received his fifth Oscar nomination for his performance in Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit in 1989. He received an honorary Oscar in 1980 "for advancing the art of screen acting through a host of memorable and distinguished performances."

Sir Alec Guinness died on August 5, 2000, at the age of 86, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex. He had been receiving hospital treatment for glaucoma, and had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was interred in Petersfield, Hampshire, England. His widow died of cancer two months later and is interred with her husband of 62 years.


Awards and Honors

He won the Academy Award as Best Actor in 1957 for his role in Bridge on the River Kwai. He was nominated again in 1958 for his screenplay adapted from Joyce Cary's novel The Horse's Mouth. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting actor for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977. He also received an Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievements in 1980.

He was appointed CBE in 1955, and was knighted in 1959. He became a Companion of Honour in 1994 at the age of 80.

He also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1559 Vine Street.

Guinness wrote three volumes of bestselling autobiography, beginning with Blessings in Disguise in 1985, followed by My Name Escapes Me in 1996, and A Positively Final Appearance in 1999. His authorized biography was written by his friend, British novelist Piers Paul Read, and published in 2003.

Jack Webb
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name John Randolph Webb
Born April 02, 1920
Santa Monica, California
Died December 23, 1982 (aged 62)
West Hollywood, California

John Randolph "Jack" Webb (April 2, 1920 - December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, director, and writer who is most famous for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday in the radio and television series Dragnet. He was also the founder of his own production company, Mark VII Productions.



Biography

Early life and career

Born in Santa Monica, California, Webb grew up poor in the Bunker Hill slum section of Los Angeles to a Jewish father and a Catholic mother; he was raised Catholic. He was a sickly child and studied art as a young man. One of the tenants in the rooming house run by his mother was an ex-jazzman who imbued Webb with a lifelong interest in jazz when he gave him a recording of Bix Beiderbecke's "At the Jazz Band Ball."


Acting career

After serving as a crewmember of a B-26 Marauder in World War II he starred in a radio show about a waterfront character who operated as an unlicensed private detective, Pat Novak for Hire. Webb's other radio shows include Johnny Modero, Pier 23, Jeff Regan, Investigator, Murder and Mr. Malone and One Out of Seven.

Probably his most famous motion picture role was as the combat-hardened drill instructor on Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island in the film The D.I.. Webb's characterization in this role would color most of his later acting.


Dragnet and stardom

Webb had a featured role as a crime lab technician in the 1948 film He Walked by Night based on the real-life murder of a California Highway Patrolman. The film was made in semidocumentary style with technical advice/assistance provided by Detective Sergeant Marty Wynn of the Los Angeles Police Department. It was this film that gave Webb the idea for Dragnet.

After getting much assistance from Sgt. Wynn and legendary LAPD chief William Parker, Dragnet hit radio airwaves in 1949 (running until 1954) and then television in 1951 on the NBC network. Webb starred as Sgt. Joe Friday and Barton Yarborough co-starred as Sgt. Ben Romero.

Webb was a stickler for attention to detail. He believed that viewers wanted "realism" and strove to give it to them. Jack Webb had tremendous respect for the people in law enforcement. He often mentioned in interviews that he was angry about the "ridiculous" amount of abuse that police were often subjected to by the press and the public. He said that he wanted to perform a service for the police by showing them as low-key working class heroes.

Despite his reputation for accuracy, he wasn't above bending the rules. According to one "Dragnet" technical advisor, he (the advisor) pointed out that several circumstances in one episode were extremely unlikely in real life. "You know that, and now I know that. But that little old lady in Kansas will never know the difference," Webb said in response.

In 1950, Webb appeared alongside future Dragnet partner Harry Morgan in the film noir Dark City.

The year 1952 saw Dragnet become a successful television show. Unfortunately Barton Yarborough died suddenly of a heart attack, and Barney Phillips (Sgt. Ed Jacobs) and Herbert Ellis (Officer Frank Smith) temporarily stepped in as partners. In 1952, veteran radio and film actor Ben Alexander would debut as the second incarnation of jovial, burly Officer Frank Smith. Alexander proved to be a popular addition to the series as Webb's detective partner and remained a cast member until the cancellation in 1959.

Dragnet began with "The story you are about to see is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." At the end of each show, the results of the trial of the suspect and severity of sentence were announced by Hal Gibney. Webb frequently re-created entire floors of buildings on soundstages, such as the police headquarters at Los Angeles City Hall for Dragnet and a floor of the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner Building for the 1959 film -30-.

During the early days of Dragnet, he continued to appear in other movies, notably the 1950 Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard.

Webb's personal life was better defined by his love of jazz than his interest in police work. His life-long interest in the cornet and racially tolerant attitude allowed him to move easily in the jazz culture, where Webb met singer and actress Julie London. They married in 1947 and raised two children. They later divorced and Webb married three more times.

In 1951, Webb introduced a short-lived radio series, Pete Kelly's Blues, in an attempt to bring the music he loved to a broader audience. That radio series became the basis for a 1955 movie of the same name. However, neither the radio series nor the movie resonated with the audiences of the time.

In early 1967 Webb produced and starred in a new color version of Dragnet for NBC. This version co-starred Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon. (Ben Alexander was unavailable as he was co-starring in Felony Squad on ABC.) The show's pilot, originally produced as a made-for-TV movie in 1966, did not air until 1969. The series itself ran through 1970.

Beginning in 1968, in concert with Robert A. Cinader, Webb produced NBC's popular Adam-12, which focused on LAPD uniform officers Pete Malloy (Martin Milner) and Jim Reed (Kent McCord), which ran until 1975.

In 1968 Webb performed, in Joe Friday character, the classic "Copper Clappers" sketch during an appearance on The Tonight Show where a pokerfaced Webb echoed Johnny Carson's equally-deadpan robbery report where all the details started with "Cl" or least the letter C.

In the early 70s Webb produced The DA with Robert Conrad and O'Hara: US Treasury with David Janssen. These were short-lived, but another show, Emergency!, proved to be a success, running from 1972 to 1977, with ratings occasionally even topping its timeslot competitor, All in the Family. Webb cast his ex-wife, Julie London, as well as her second husband and Dragnet ensemble player Bobby Troup, as nurse Dixie McCall and Dr. Joe Early.


Late life

Project UFO was another Webb production and depicted Project Blue Book, a U.S. Air Force investigation into unidentified flying objects. This was the last major product of his Mark VII production company. The end credits for the Mark VII productions famously showed a man's hands using a sledge hammer to stamp "VII" into a metal plate. It was later revealed that the hands belonged to Webb himself.

He was working on scripts for another revival of Dragnet in 1983 with Kent McCord as his partner, when he died of a heart attack in 1982 at the age of 62.

He was interred in the Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles. Webb was given a funeral with full police honors (including the chief of police announcing that the badge number 714 that Webb used in Dragnet would be retired) although he had never actually served on the force.

Not only did the LAPD use Dragnet episodes as training films for a time, they also named a police academy auditorium after Webb.

Universal has released several of Webb's series on DVD, including Dragnet 1967, Emergency! and Adam-12. In addition a number of episodes of the 1950s Dragnet series are now in the public domain and as such are widely available on non-Universal DVD releases. The Dragnet 1967 and Adam-12 theme songs are available on iTunes for downloading to iPod.


Trivia

In homage to Webb, a photo of him can be seen in the Dan Aykroyd film Dragnet (1987), co-starring Harry Morgan.
The hands swinging the hammer at the end of Webb's produced shows (Mark VII Productions) are his own.

Marvin Gaye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Background information
Birth name Marvin Pentz Gay Jr.
Born April 2, 1939
Origin Washington, D.C., USA
Died April 1, 1984
Los Angeles, California
Genre(s) R&B, pop, soul, funk
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, instrumentalist,
record producer
Instrument(s) Vocals, piano/keyboards, synthesizer, drums
Years active 1957-1984
Label(s) Tamla, Columbia
Associated
acts The Moonglows, Tammi Terrell, The Originals, Kim Weston

Marvin Gaye (born Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr.) (April 2, 1939 - April 1, 1984) was an American soul and R&B singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, record producer and performer who gained international fame as an artist on the Motown label in the 1960s and 1970s.

Beginning his career at Motown in 1960, Gaye quickly became Motown's top solo male artist and scored numerous hits during the 1960s, among them "Stubborn Kind of Fellow", "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)", "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and several hit duets with Tammi Terrell, including "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and "You're All I Need to Get By", before moving on to his own form of musical self-expression.

Gaye is notable for fighting the hit-making, but creatively restrictive, Motown record-making process, in which performers and songwriters and record producers were generally kept in separate camps.[1] With his successful 1971 album What's Going On and subsequent releases including Trouble Man and Let's Get It On, Gaye, who had been a part-time songwriter for Motown artists during his early years with the label, proved that he could write and produce his own singles without having to rely on the Motown system. This achievement (along with those of contemporaries, Curtis Mayfield and George Clinton), would pave the way for the successes of later self-sufficient singer-songwriter-producers in African American music, such as Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, and Babyface.

During the 1970s, Gaye would release several other notable albums, including Let's Get It On and I Want You, and had hits with singles such as "Let's Get It On", "Got to Give It Up", and, in the early 1980s, "Sexual Healing". By the time of his death in 1984 at the hands of his clergyman father, Gaye had become one of the most influential artists of the soul music era.





Biography


Early life

Marvin Gaye was born the first son second eldest of four children to Rev. Marvin Pentz Gay, Sr and Alberta Williams. His sisters, Jeanne and Zeola, younger brother Frankie and Marvin lived in the segregated section of Washington, D.C.'s Deanwood neighborhood in the northeastern section of the city. Gaye's father preached in a Seventh-day Adventist Church sect called the House of God, which went by a strict code of conduct and mixed teachings of Orthodox Judaism and Pentecostalism.

Gaye's father was physically abusive to all four of his children.

After dropping out of Cardozo High School, Gaye joined the United States Air Force. He was discharged because he refused to follow orders.

After starting his recording career at Motown Records, he changed his name from Marvin Gay to Marvin Gaye, adding the 'e' to separate himself from his father and in admiration of his idol, Sam Cooke, who also added an 'e' to his last name ([1]).


Early music career

Gaye began his career in several doo wop groups, settling on The Marquees, a popular D.C. group. With Bo Diddley, The Marquees released a single, "Wyatt Earp", in 1958 on Okeh Records and were then recruited by Harvey Fuqua to become The Moonglows. "Mama Loocie", released in 1959 on Chess Records, was Gaye's first single with the Moonglows and his first recorded lead. After a concert in Detroit, the "new" Moonglows disbanded and Fuqua introduced Gaye to Motown Records president Berry Gordy. He signed Gaye first as a session drummer for acts such as The Miracles, The Contours, Martha and the Vandellas, The Marvelettes and others. Most notably, he was the drummer on The Marvelettes' 1961 number one hit "Please Mr. Postman" and Little Stevie Wonder's 1963 number one hit "Fingertips Pt. 2". He also co-wrote Martha & the Vandellas' 1964 hit "Dancing In The Street" and The Marvelettes' 1962 hit "Beechwood 4-5789". After much pleading, Gaye was signed as a singer less than a year later.

Popular and well-liked around Motown, Gaye already carried himself in a sophisticated, gentlemanly manner and had little need of training from Motown's in-house Artist Development director, Maxine Powell.


Entering Tammi Terrell

A number of Gaye's hit singles for Motown were duets with female artists, such as Mary Wells, Kim Weston and Tammi Terrell; the first Gaye/Wells album, 1964's Together, was Gaye's first charting album. Terrell and Gaye in particular had a good rapport and their first album together, 1967's United, birthed the massive hits "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" (later covered by Diana Ross and more recently, by former Doobie Brothers singer, Michael McDonald) and "Your Precious Love". Real life couple Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson provided the writing and production for the Gaye/Terrell records; while Gaye and Terrell themselves were not lovers (though rumors persist that they may have been), they convincingly portrayed lovers on record; indeed Gaye sometimes claimed that for the durations of the songs he was in love with her. On October 14, 1967, Terrell collapsed into Gaye's arms onstage while they were performing at the Hampton University homecoming in Virginia (contrary to popular belief, it was not Hampden-Sydney College, also in Virginia). She was later diagnosed with a brain tumor and her health continued to deteriorate.

Motown decided to try and carry on with the Gaye/Terrell recordings, issuing the You're All I Need album in 1968, which featured the hits "Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" and "You're All I Need to Get By". By the time of the final Gaye/Terrell album, Easy in 1969, Terrell's vocals were performed mostly by Valerie Simpson. Two tracks on Easy were archived Terrell solo songs with Gaye's vocals overdubbed onto them.

Terrell's illness put Gaye in a depression; when his Norman Whitfield-produced "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" (sample (help·info)) became his first #1 hit and the biggest selling single in Motown history to that point with four million copies sold, he refused to acknowledge his success, feeling that it was undeserved. Meanwhile, Gaye's marriage with Anna was crumbling and he continued to feel irrelevant, singing endlessly about love while popular music underwent a revolution and began addressing social and political issues. His work with Norman Whitfield would result in similar success with the singles "Too Busy Thinking About My Baby" and "That's the Way Love Is".



What's Going On

Tammi Terrell died of a tumor on March 16, 1970. Gaye subsequently went into self-seclusion, and did not perform in concert for nearly two years. He tried various spirit-lifting diversions, including a short-lived attempt at a football career with the Detroit Lions. He trained hard, but the team's managers turned him down without a tryout. He continued to feel pain, with no form of self-expression. As a result, he entered the studio on June 1, 1970 and recorded the songs "What's Going On", "God is Love", and "Sad Tomorrows" - an early version of "Flying High (In the Friendly Sky)".

Gaye wanted to release "What's Going On" (sample (help·info)). Motown head Berry Gordy refused, however, calling the single "uncommercial". Gaye refused to record any more until Gordy gave in and the song became a surprise hit in January 1971. Gordy subsequently requested an entire album of similar tracks from Gaye.

The What's Going On album became one of the highlights of Gaye's career and is today his best-known work. Both in terms of sound (influenced by funk and jazz) and lyrical content (heavily political) it was a major departure from his earlier Motown work. Two more of its singles, "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", became Top 10 pop hits and #1 R&B hits. The album became one of the most memorable soul albums of all time and, based upon its themes, the concept album became the next new frontier for soul music. It has been called "the most important and passionate record to come out of soul music, delivered by one of its finest voices".[2]






Continued success in music

After the success of the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film, Trouble Man in 1972, Marvin decided to switch topics from social to sensual with the release of Let's Get It On (sample (help·info)). The album was a rare departure for the singer for its blatant sensualism inspired by the success of What's Going On and Marvin's need to produce himself in his own way. Yielded by the smash title track and subsequent other hits such as "Come Get to This", "You Sure Love to Ball" and "Distant Lover". Let's Get It On became Marvin Gaye's biggest selling album during his lifetime, surpassing What's Going On. Also, with the title track, Gaye broke his own record at Motown by surpassing the sales of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". The album would be later hailed as "a record unparallelled in its sheer sensuality and carnal energy."[3]

Gaye began working on his final duet album, this time for Diana Ross for the Diana & Marvin project, an album of duets that began recording in 1972, while Ross was pregnant with her second child. Gaye refused to sing if he couldn't smoke in the studio, so the duet album was recorded by overdubbing Ross and Gaye at separate studio session dates. Released in the fall of 1973, the album yielded the US Top 20 hit singles "You're a Special Part of Me and "My Mistake (Was to Love You)" as well as the UK versions of two The Stylistics's "You Are Everything" at #5 and "Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart)" at #25, respectively.

In 1976, Gaye released the I Want You LP, which yielded the number-one R&B single, "I Want You" and the modest charter, "After the Dance." and produced erotic album tracks such as "Since I Had You" and "Soon I'll Be Loving You Again" with its musical productions gearing Gaye towards more funky material.


Later years and his death

In 1977, Gaye released the seminal funk single, "Got to Give It Up", which went to number-one on both the pop, R&B and dance singles charts and helped his Live at the London Palladium album sell over two million copies and becoming one of the top ten best-selling albums of the year. The following year, after divorcing his first wife Anna, he agreed to remit a portion of his salary and sales of his upcoming album to his ex for alimony. The result was 1978's Here, My Dear, which addressed the sour points of his marriage to Anna and almost led to Anna filing an invasion of privacy against Marvin, though she later reversed that decision. That album tanked on the charts (despite its later critical reevaluation) however, and Gaye struggled to sell a record. By 1979, besieged by tax problems and drug addictions, Gaye filed for bankruptcy and moved to Hawaii where he lived in a bread van. In 1980, he signed with British promoter Jeffrey Kruger to do concerts overseas with the promised highlight of a Royal Command Performance at London's Drury Lane in front of Princess Margaret. Gaye failed to make the stage on time and by the time he came, everyone had left. While in London, Marvin worked on In Our Lifetime?, a complex and deeply personal record. When Motown issued the album in 1981, Gaye was livid: he accused Motown of editing and remixing the album without his consent, releasing an unfinished song ("Far Cry"), altering the album art he requested and removing the question mark from the title (rendering the intended irony imperceptible).

After being offered a chance to clear things out in Oostende, Belgium, he permanently moved there in 1981. Still upset over Motown's hasty decision to release In Our Lifetime, he negotiated a release from the label and signed with Columbia Records in 1982, releasing Midnight Love that year. The album included Marvin's final big hit, "Sexual Healing" The song gave Gaye his first two Grammy Awards (Best R&B Male Vocal Performance, Best R&B Instrumental) in February 1983. The following year, he won a Grammy nomination for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance again, this time for the Midnight Love album itself. In February 1983, Gaye gave an emotional performance of The Star-Spangled Banner at the NBA All-Star Game, held at The Forum in Inglewood, California, accompanied by a drum machine. In March, 1983, he gave his final performance in front of his old mentor and label for Motown 25, performing "What's Going On". He then embarked on a U.S. tour to support his album. The tour, ending in August 1983, was plagued by health problems and Gaye's bouts with depression, and fear over an alleged attempt on his life.

When the tour ended, he isolated himself by moving into his parents' house. He threatened to commit suicide several times after numerous bitter arguments with his father, Marvin, Sr. On the E! True Hollywood Story about Gaye, singer Little Richard revealed that Gaye had premonitions of his murder in his final years of life. On April 1, 1984, one day before his forty-fifth birthday, Gaye's father shot and killed him after an argument that had started after Marvin's parents argued over misplaced business documents. Marvin, Sr. later was sentenced to six years of probation after pleading guilty to manslaughter. Charges of first-degree murder were dropped after doctors discovered Marvin, Sr. had a brain tumor. Later serving his final years in a retirement home, he died of pneumonia in 1998.

After some posthumous releases cemented his memory in the popular consciousness, Gaye was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987. He later was inducted to Hollywood's Rock Walk in 1989 and was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990.


Personal life

Gaye married twice. His first marriage, to Berry Gordy, Jr.'s sister Anna Gordy, who inspired some of Gaye's earlier hits including "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" and "You Are a Wonderful One", produced an adopted son, Marvin Pentz Gaye III (b. June 8, 1965). Troubled from the start, the marriage permanently imploded after Gaye began courting Janis Hunter, the seventeen-year-old daughter of hipster jazz icon Slim Gaillard, in 1973 following the release of his Let's Get It On album. Hunter was also an inspiration to Gaye's music, particularly his entire post-What's Going On/Trouble Man period which included Let's Get It On and I Want You. Their relationship produced two children, Nona Marvisa Gaye (b. September 4, 1974) and Frankie Christian Gaye (b. November 16, 1975). Marvin and Janis married after Marvin's divorce from Anna was finalized. Shortly after their October 1977 wedding in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, however, they separated due to growing tensions between them, finally divorcing in February 1981.

After Gaye's death, two of his children followed in his footsteps to show business: eldest son Marvin Pentz Gaye III became a record producer and has control of his estate, while Gaye's only daughter, Nona, became a model, an actress and a singer. His youngest child, son Frankie Christian, has not followed his siblings into show business.


Legacy, tributes and award recognitions

Even before Gaye died, there had already been tributes to the singer. In 1983, the British group Spandau Ballet recorded the single "True" as a partial tribute to both Gaye and the Motown sound he helped establish. A year after his death, The Commodores made reference to Gaye's death in their 1985 song "Night Shift" as did the Violent Femmes in their 1988 song "See My Ships". Former Motown alum Diana Ross also paid tribute with her Top 10 pop single "Missing You" (1985) while the soul band Maze featuring Frankie Beverly recorded the tribute song, "Silky Soul" (1989), in honor of their late mentor. He was also mentioned in the next-to-last choral verse of George Michael's record, "John & Elvis are Dead", featured on his album, Patience.

In 1995, certain artists including Madonna, Stevie Wonder, Speech of the group Arrested Development and Gaye's own daughter Nona, paid tribute to Gaye with the MTV-assisted tribute album, Inner City Blues: The Music of Marvin Gaye, which also included a documentary of the same name that aired on MTV. In 1999, R&B artists such as D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, Brian McKnight and Will Downing paid their respects to Gaye in a tribute album, Marvin Is 60. In October 2001, an all-star cover of "What's Going On", produced by Jermaine Dupri, was issued as a benefit single, credited to "Artists Against AIDS Worldwide". The single, which was a reaction to the tragedy of the September 11, 2001 attacks as well as to the AIDS crisis, featured contributions from a plethora of stars, including Christina Aguilera, Mary J. Blige, Bono, Mariah Carey, Destiny's Child, Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit, Nelly Furtado, Alicia Keys, Aaron Lewis of the rock group StainD, Nas, *NSYNC, P. Diddy, ?uestlove of The Roots, Britney Spears, and Gwen Stefani [2]. The "What's Going On" cover also featured Nona, who sang one of the song's memorable lines, Father, father/we don't need to escalate.

In 1987, Marvin was inducted posthumously to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with Marvin's first wife Anna Gordy and son Marvin III accepting for Marvin. He was later given his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1990. In 1996, he was posthumously awarded with the Grammy Award for Lifetime Achievement Award and was honored in song by admirers Annie Lennox and Seal. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked him #18 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.[4]

Throughout his long career, Gaye scored a total of forty-one Top 40 hit singles on Billboard's Pop Singles chart between 1963 and 2001, sixty top forty R&B singles chart hits from 1962 to 2001, eighteen Top Ten pop singles on the pop chart, thirty-eight Top 10 singles on the R&B chart (according to latest figures from Joel Whitburns Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004, 2004), three number-one pop hits and thirteen number-one R&B hits and tied with Michael Jackson in total as well as the fourth biggest artist of all-time to spend the most weeks at the number-one spot on the R&B singles chart (52 weeks). In all, Gaye produced a total of sixty-seven singles on the Billboard charts in total spanning five decades including five posthumous releases.

The year a remix of Marvin's "Let's Get It On" was released to urban adult contemporary radio, "Let's Get It On" was certified gold by the RIAA for sales in excess of 500,000 units, making it the best-selling single of all time on Motown in the United States. Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" holds the title of the best-selling international Motown single of all time, with high sales explained by a re-release in Europe following a Levi's 501 Jeans commercial in 1986.

In 2005, rock group A Perfect Circle released "What's Going On" as part of an anti-war CD titled eMOTIVe. The next year, it was announced that rock group the Strokes was going to cover Marvin's "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" on their next album. In October 2005, a discussion was delivered at Marvin's hometown of Washington, D.C.'s City Council to change the name of a park located at Marvin's childhood neighborhood from Watts Branch Park to Marvin Gaye Park and was soon offered so for $5 million to make the name change a reality. The park was renamed on April 2, 2006 on what would've been Marvin's sixty-seventh birthday.

A documentary about Gaye's life and death - What's Going On: The Marvin Gaye Story - was a UK/PBS USA co-production, directed by Jeremy Marre. Gaye is referenced as one of the supernatural acts to appear in the short story and later television version of Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes in You Know They Got a Hell of a Band.

A Marvin Gaye biopic, titled Marvin - The Marvin Gaye Story, is being set for production in 2007 by Producer Duncan McGillivray (Film by Humans Production Co., LLC) with singer Roberta Flack supervising on the music. It will be a full-scale, $40 million dollar biopic of the entire life story of Gaye.

A play in Marvin's hometown of Washington, D.C. about the singer is currently playing.

Linda Hunt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Birth name Lydia Susanna Hunter
Born April 2, 1945 (age 62)
Morristown, New Jersey, USA
Other name(s) Lydia Hunt
Spouse(s) George Henry Albertson Junior (1976-1981) no children
Official site Lydia-Hunter
Notable roles Billy Kwan in The Year of Living Dangerously
Mrs. Oxheart in Popeye
Grandmother Willow (voice) in Pocahontas
Gaia the Titan and narrator (voice) in God of War

Linda Hunt (born April 2, 1945) is an American film, stage and television actress. She is known for her Academy Award-winning role in 1983's The Year of Living Dangerously.



Biography

Early life

Hunt was born in Morristown, New Jersey to Elsie Doying, who taught at the Westport School of Music and accompanied the Saugatuck Congregational Church choir, and Raymond Davy Hunt, the long-time vice president of Harper Fuel Oil in Long Island. She has a sister, Marcia.


Career

Hunt's film debut occurred in 1980 in Robert Altman's musical comedy Popeye. She won the Oscar as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the male Chinese-Australian dwarf Billy Kwan in the film The Year of Living Dangerously in 1982. This made her the first actor to ever win an Oscar for playing a character of the opposite gender.

Hunt is also a well known stage actress, who has received two Obie awards and a Tony nomination for her theatre work. She created the role of Aunt Dan in Wallace Shawn's play Aunt Dan and Lemon. Recently, she portrayed Sister Aloysius in the Pasadena Playhouse production of John Patrick Shanley's Tony Award-winning play "Doubt."

Beside her acting abilities, Hunt is distinguished by her small stature (she is 4' 9" or 1.45 m), and her rich, resonant voice, which she has used effectively in numerous documentaries, cartoons, and commercials. Hunt is the on-air host for City Arts & Lectures, a radio program recorded by KQED public radio. She was chosen by Walt Disney Feature Animation to lend her enigmatic speaking and singing voice to Grandmother Willow in Pocahontas. Her voice work also includes the character of "Management", on US TV series Carnivàle and Gaia, who serves as the Narrator in God of War and its sequel God of War II . She also narrates the introduction film at the Spy Museum in Washington, DC.

Emmylou Harris
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Background information

Born April 2, 1947 (age 60)
Birmingham, Alabama
Genre(s) Folk, country rock, country, bluegrass, rock, pop, alt-country
Occupation(s) Singer-songwriter, producer, arranger, session musician
Instrument(s) Voice, guitar
Years active 1969-present
Label(s) Jubilee, Reprise, Warner Bros., Elektra, Rhino, Nonesuch
Associated
acts Gram Parsons, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, The Band, Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, Willie Nelson,The Hot Band, The Nash Ramblers, Spyboy, Dave Matthews, Patty Griffin
Website www.emmylou.net

Emmylou Harris (b. April 2, 1947, Birmingham, Alabama) is a country music singer-songwriter and musician. Aside from her work as a solo artist and bandleader, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous big-name artists.




Biography

Early years

Emmylou Harris was the daughter of a career military father. She was born in Birmingham, Alabama and spent her childhood in North Carolina, and then in Woodbridge, Virginia, where she graduated from Gar-Field Senior High School as class valedictorian and won a drama scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This is when she began to study music seriously, learning to play the songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez on guitar.

Harris married fellow songwriter Tom Slocum in 1969, and recorded her first album the following year, Gliding Bird, on Jubilee Records (reissued in 1979 on Emus Records). Shortly thereafter, the couple got divorced, and Harris and her newborn daughter Hallie moved-in with her parents in Washington, D.C.


With Gram Parsons

Harris soon returned to performing, as part of a trio with local musicians Gerry Mule and Tom Guidera. One night in 1971, members of the country rock group The Flying Burrito Brothers happened to be in the audience, including former Byrds member Chris Hillman, who had taken over the band after the departure of its founder, Gram Parsons. Hillman was so impressed by Harris that he briefly considered asking her to join the band.[citation needed] Instead, in 1972, Hillman ended up recommending her to Parsons, who was looking for a female vocalist to work with on his first solo album. Harris toured as a member of Parsons' "Fallen Angels" band, and in 1973, Harris returned to the studio with Parsons to record Grievous Angel. Parsons died in a motel room near what is now Joshua Tree National Park on September 19, 1973, from an overdose of drugs including alcohol. (Harris reflected on Parsons' death in her 1975 composition "Boulder to Birmingham".)


The Reprise Years

Emmylou met Canadian producer Brian Ahern, who produced her major label debut album, released in 1975 on Reprise Records, entitled Pieces of the Sky. The album included a number of cover songs, including The Beatles' "For No One" and Harris's first hit single, The Louvin Brothers' "If I Could Only Win Your Love". She created The Hot Band, a group of studio and touring musicians that included Elvis Presley band alumni Glen D. Hardin, Hank DeVito, and James Burton.

Harris' subsequent albums, Elite Hotel (1975), Luxury Liner (1977), and Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town (1978) were all country hits, but also had appeal for rock listeners. While country music was experiencing crossover success at the time, the approach of many country artists was to try to marry their music with smooth, L.A.-style pop; Harris, however, had more of a rock and roll interest, so she aimed her music in a bit more rockish direction.

In addition to her own solo work during this period, Harris began a number of ongoing collaborative relationships with other artists, many of which she would revisit throughout the course of her career. A Christmas album, "Light of the Stable," was released in 1979; its title track featured backing vocals by Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Neil Young. From the mid-1970s on, Harris had begun working with all three artists, recording two Trio albums with Parton and Ronstadt (as well as a number of singles), a duet album with Ronstadt, and a number of various projects with Young. In addition, her vocals were prominently featured on Bob Dylan's 1975 Desire album. She also worked with The Band during this period, appearing in their film The Last Waltz. In 1977, Harris married Brian Ahern and had another daughter, Meghann in 1979. This marriage ended in divorce in 1984.

Her 1979 album Blue Kentucky Girl featured straight Loretta Lynn/Kitty Wells-style country, while 1980's Roses in the Snow was a Grammy-winning collection of bluegrass and country material featuring Ricky Skaggs, Tony Rice, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Douglas.

In 1980, she recorded "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" with rock legend Roy Orbison, for which they would win the Grammy Award for best vocal duo, and in 1981, she reached #37 on the Billboard pop charts with a cover of "Mister Sandman" from her Evangeline album. (The album version of the song featured harmony by Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt, but neither Parton's nor Ronstadt's record companies would allow their artists' vocals to be used on the single, so Harris re-recorded the song, singing all three parts.)

1983's White Shoes was an eclectic pairing of the rockish reading of "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" with a remake of the Donna Summer hit "On the Radio". Though not previously noted for her songwriting, Harris wrote all the songs on her 1985 album, The Ballad of Sally Rose, a somewhat autobiographical piece, based on her relationship with Parsons, which Harris herself described as a "country opera". Harris married musician Paul Kennerley in 1985. This marrriage ended in divorced in 1993.

1986's album Thirteen was her thirteenth solo album.

In 1987, she teamed up with Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt for their long-promised Trio album. The album was nominated for three Grammy awards (it took the award for "Best Country Collaboration"), reached the top ten on both the pop and country charts, and launched four hit singles. On Angel Band, another 1987 album, with traditional religious songs, she worked, among others, with rising country star Vince Gill.

1989's album Bluebird included John Hiatt's "Icy Blue Heart" (with backings from Bonnie Raitt).

In the early 1990s, she dissolved The Hot Band, and partnered with acoustic musicians (Sam Bush [fiddle, mandolin & vocals], Roy Huskey, Jr. [bass & vocals], Larry Atamanuik [drums], Al Perkins [banjo, guitar, dobro & vocals], Jon Randall [guitar, mandolin & vocals]), whom she named The Nash Ramblers. They recorded a Grammy-winning live album (1992) at the Ryman Auditorium that led to the $8 million restoration of the facility into a premium concert and event venue. It was her last album with Reprise Records.


New directions

Harris started receiving less airplay as mainstream country stations began shifting their focus to the youth-oriented "new country" format. While her recent albums had done reasonably well, her chart success was on the wane. Switching to Elektra Records, her 1993 Cowgirl's Prayer album, while critically praised, received very little airplay, and its single, "High Powered Love" failed to chart, prompting her to shift her career in a new direction.

In 1995, Harris released one of the most critically acclaimed albums of the decade, Wrecking Ball, produced by Daniel Lanois, best known for his work with U2, Peter Gabriel and Bob Dylan. An experimental album for Harris, to say the least, the record included Harris' rendition of the Neil Young-penned title track (Young himself provided guest vocals on two of the album's songs), Steve Earle's "Goodbye," Julie Miller's "All My Tears", Jimi Hendrix's "May This Be Love", Kate and Anna McGarrigle's "Goin' Back to Harlan" and Gillian Welch's "Orphan Girl". U2's Larry Mullen, Jr showed up to play drums for the project. The album received virtually no country airplay whatsoever, but did bring Harris to the attention of alternative rock listeners, many of whom had never listened to her music before. The following year, she appeared on Willie Nelson's moody, instrumentally sparse Teatro album, which was also produced by Lanois.

In 1998, Harris released the live Spyboy, backed with a new band comprising Nashville producer, songwriter and guitarist Buddy Miller and New Orleans musicians, drummer Brady Blade and bassist-vocalist-percussionist Daryl Johnson. The album updated many of Harris' career hits, including "Boulder to Birmingham". Also, in 1998, Tara MacLean recorded a cover of Harris' Christmas single "Light of the Stable".

Her 1999 Red Dirt Girl album was produced by Lanois protegé Malcolm Burn and, for the first time since The Ballad of Sally Rose, contained a number of Harris' own compositions. Like Wrecking Ball, the album's sound leaned more toward alternative rock than country. Also in 1999, Harris released a second Trio album with Parton and Ronstadt, Trio 2 (which was actually recorded in the early 1990s, but remained unreleased for five years, due to record label disputes and conflicting schedules and career priorities of the three artists). Harris and Ronstadt released a duet album, Western Wall: The Tucson Sessions the following year.

In 2000, Harris guested on alternative country singer Ryan Adams' solo debut Heartbreaker. The same year she joined an all star group of traditional country, folk and blues artists for the T-Bone Burnett produced soundtrack to the Coen Brothers film, O Brother, Where Art Thou?. A documentary/concert film, Down from the Mountain, featuring the artists performing music from the film and other songs at the Ryman Auditorium. Harris and many of the same artists took their show on the road for the Down from the Mountain Tour in 2002.

Harris released Stumble into Grace, her follow-up to Red Dirt Girl in 2003, and like its predecessor, it contained mostly self-penned material.

In 2004, Harris led the Sweet Harmony Traveling Revue tour with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin. They performed singly and together and swapped instruments.


In 2005, Harris worked with Conor Oberst on Bright Eyes' release, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning, performing backup vocals and harmonies on three tracks. In July, she also joined Elvis Costello on several dates of his U.S. tour, performing alongside Costello and his band on several numbers each night. Emmylou and Costello recorded a version of Costello's song, "The Scarlet Tide", from the soundtrack of the movie, "Cold Mountain". July also saw the release of The Very Best of Emmylou Harris: Heartaches and Highways, a single-disc retrospective of Harris's career, on the Rhino Entertainment label.

This same year, Harris appeared as a guest vocalist on the widely acclaimed Prairie Wind, the latest album by Neil Young. She appeared in the Jonathan Demme documentary-concert film Neil Young: Heart of Gold, released in 2006.

All the Roadrunning, an album of collaborations with former Dire Straits frontman Mark Knopfler, was released on April 24, 2006 (April 25 in USA), and supported by a tour of Europe and the USA. The album was a commercial success, reaching #10 in the UK and #17 in the USA.

Selections recorded during the All the Roadrunning tour performance at the Gibson Amphitheatre were released as a CD/DVD package entitled Real Live Roadrunning on November 14, 2006. In addition to several of the compositions that Harris and Knopfler recorded together in the studio, Real Live Roadrunning features solo hits from both members of the duo, as well as a few classic tracks from Knopfler's days with Dire Straits.


Activism

In 1997 & 1998, Harris performed in Sarah McLachlan's Lilith Fair, promoting feminism in music. Since 1999, Harris has been organizing an annual benefit tour called Concerts for a Landmine Free World. All proceeds from the tours support the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation's (VVAF) efforts to assist innocent victims of conflicts around the world. The tour also benefits the VVAF's work to raise America's awareness of the global landmine crisis. Artists that have joined Harris on the road for these dates include Mary-Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Cockburn, Steve Earle, Joan Baez, Patty Griffin and Nanci Griffith.

Emmylou is also a supporter of animal rights and an active member of PETA. [1]

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Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 22:57:09 EDT
Subject: Fwd: Van Gogh's Family Tree old but funny
To: [email protected]

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From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 6 May 2005 04:40:21 EDT
Subject: Van Gogh's Family Tree old but funny
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Van Gogh's Family Tree

His dizzy aunt ----------------------------------------------------Verti Gogh

The brother who ate prunes ---------------------------------Gotta Gogh

The brother who worked at a convenience store -------Stop n Gogh

The grandfather from Yugoslavia ---------------------------U Gogh

/**/The cousin from Illinois ------------------------------------Chica Gogh

His magician uncle ----------------------------------------------Where-diddy Gogh

His Mexican cousin ----------------------------------------------A mee Gogh

The Mexican cousin's American half-brother -------------Gring Gogh

The nephew who drove a stage coach---------------------Wells-far Gogh

The constipated uncle -----------------------------------------Cant Gogh

The ballroom dancing aunt -----------------------------------Tang Gogh

The bird lover uncle ---------------------------------------------Flamin Gogh

His nephew psychoanalyst ------------------------------------E Gogh

The fruit loving cousin ------------------------------------------Man Gogh

An aunt who taught positive thinking -----------------------Way-to Gogh

The little bouncy nephew --------------------------------------Poe Gogh

A sister who loved disco ----------------------------------------Go Gogh

And his niece who travels the country in a van -----------Winnie Bay Gogh

/**/Well, there you Gogh!/**/

Welcome back, hawkman. You missed all the fun yesterday, Boston. Lots of neat stuff and name changes. I was hoping to see what yours would be.
Dutchy still has his windmill that turns and turns and turns.

As for Van Gogh, I never see that name that I don't think of Starry Starry Night.

Thanks for the bio's, buddy. I, for one, always learn something that is valuable.

Shall await that pup before acknowledging.

And away We Gogh:

My word, folks, our pup has a fabulous sense of humor. (sorry, Brits, no "u")

Okay, we are looking at Buddy, Alec, Jack, Marvin, Linda, and Emmylou.

Here's my favorite by Marvin.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Ooh, I bet you're wondering how I knew
About you're plans to make me blue
With some other guy that you knew before.
Between the two of us guys
You know I love you more.
It took me by surprise I must say,
When I found out yesterday.
Don't you know that...

(Chorus:)
I heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine.
Oh I heard it through the grapevine,
Oh and I'm just about to lose my mind.
Honey, honey yeah.

I know that a man ain't supposed to cry,
But these tears I can't hold inside.
Losin' you would end my life you see,
Cause you mean that much to me.
You could have told me yourself
That you love someone else.
Instead...

(Chorus)

People say believe half of what you see,
Son, and none of what you hear.
I can't help bein' confused
If it's true please tell me dear?
Do you plan to let me go
For the other guy you loved before?
Don't you know...

(Chorus)

good evening , listeners !
since i dropped off my income tax forms at the tax-office this afternoon , i think this is an appropiate song to end the day .
hbg

Starry starry night
paint your palette blue and grey
look out on a summer's day
with eyes that know the darkness in my soul.

Shadows on the hills
sketch the trees and the daffodils
catch the breeze and the winter chills
in colors on the snowy linen land.

And now I understand
what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now.

Starry starry night
flaming flowers that brightly blaze
swirling clouds in violet haze reflect in
Vincent's eyes of China blue.

Colors changing hue
morning fields of amber grain
weathered faces lined in pain
are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand.

And now I understand
what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they did not know how
perhaps they'll listen now.

For they could not love you
but still your love was true
and when no hope was left in sight on that starry starry night.
You took your life as lovers often do;

But I could have told you Vincent
this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you.

Starry starry night
portraits hung in empty halls
frameless heads on nameless walls
with eyes that watch the world and can't forget.

Like the strangers that you've met
the ragged men in ragged clothes
the silver thorn of bloody rose
lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow.

And now I think I know
what you tried to say to me
how you suffered for your sanity
how you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
they're not listening still
perhaps they never will.

Sometimes When We Touch
Dan Hill

You ask me if I love you and I choke on my reply
I'd rather hurt you honestly than mislead you with a lie
And who am I to judge you on what you say or do
I'm only just beginning to see the real you
And sometimes when we touch
the honesty's too much and I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you till I die
till we both break down and cry
I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides

Romance and all its strategy leaves me battling with my pride
But through the insecurity some tenderness survives
I'm just another writer, still trapped within my truths
A hesitant prizefighter still trapped within my youth

And sometimes when we touch
the honesty's too much and I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you till I die
till we both break down and cry
I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides

At times I'd like to break you and drive you to your knees
At times I'd like to break through and hold you endlessly
At times I understand you and I know how hard you've tried
I've watched while love commands you
and I've watched love pass you by
At times I think we're drifters, still searching for a friend,
A brother or a sister, but then the passion flares again

And sometimes when we touch
the honesty's too much and I have to close my eyes and hide
I wanna hold you till I die
till we both break down and cry
I want to hold you till the fear in me subsides

having filed my income tax , the "blues" are beginning to get to me !
realizing that "the money is gone" - it's with the taxman
hbg

Moonlight Gambler
Frankie Laine

[Words by Bob Hilliard and Music by Phil Springer]

SPOKEN:
You can gamble for match sticks, you can gamble for gold
The stakes may be heavy or small
But if you haven't gambled for love and lost
You haven't gambled at all

They call me a moonlight gambler
I've gambled for love and lost
When I gamble for love and it isn't in the cards
Oh, what heartaches it can cost me

Win or lose, I'm a moonlight gambler
And a winner is what I long to be
So I'll gamble for love just as long as I live
Till the day Lady Luck smiles at me

You can gamble for match sticks
You can gamble for gold
The stakes may be heavy or small
But if you haven't gambled for love and lost
Then you haven't gambled at all

No, if you haven't gambled for love in the moonlight
Then you haven't gambled at all

So I'll gamble for love just as long as I live
Till the day Lady Luck smiles at me

They call me the moonlight gambler
They call me the moonlight gambler

and with edgar's Moonlight Gambler we have succeeded in putting the world in focus. Thank you, Texas, for the fulcrum.

a perfect goonight song for me.

From Letty with love.

speaking of the dark side, midnight rambler by the Stones rhymes with moonlight gambler:

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Everybody got to go
Did you hear about the midnight rambler
The one that shut the kitchen door
He don't give a hoot of warning
Wrapped up in a black cat cloak
He don't go in the light of the morning
He split the time the cock'rel crows

Talkin' about the midnight gambler
The one you never seen before
Talkin' about the midnight gambler
Did you see him jump the garden wall
Sighin' down the wind so sad
Listen and you'll hear him moan
Well, talkin' about the midnight gambler
Everybody got to go

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
Well, honey, it's no rock 'n' roll show
Well, I'm talkin' about the midnight gambler
Yeah, the one you never seen before

(ad lib)

Well you heard about the Boston...
It's not one of those
Well, talkin' 'bout the midnight...sh...
The one that closed the bedroom door
I'm called the hit-and-run raper in anger
The knife-sharpened tippie-toe...
Or just the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler
You know, the one you never seen before
So if you ever meet the midnight rambler
Coming down your marble hall
Well he's pouncing like a proud black panther
Well, you can say I, I told you so
Well, don't you listen for the midnight rambler
Well, play it easy, as you go
I'm gonna smash down all your plate glass windows
Put a fist, put a fist through your steel-plated door

Did you hear about the midnight rambler
He'll leave his footprints up and down your hall
And did you hear about the midnight gambler
And did you see me make my midnight call
And if you ever catch the midnight rambler
I'll steal your mistress from under your nose
I'll go easy with your cold fanged anger
I'll stick my knife right down your throat, baby
And it hurts!

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

Well, had a little malfunction in our equipment, but it seems to be AOK now.

Hey, Mr. Turtle. Nice to see you back. Thanks for the midnight song of last evening, and the Stones are great, as usual. Quite a powerful line, "....cold fanged anger...."

How about a wake up call from e.e.cummings, folks.

e.e. cummings


in just-
in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame baloonman

whistles far and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

the queer
old baloonman whistles
far and wee
and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and

it's
spring
and

the

goat-footed

baloonMan whistles
far
and
wee

Ever wonder who that baloonMan might be?

Letty
I found the poem interesting and did wonder about "the little lame baloonman", "the queer old baloonman", and "the goat-footed baloonMan"

I guess it is left to someone's interpretation. It could be good or it could be bad. That is what I got out of it. I don't think e.e. cummings (1894 - 1962) ever explained it so we may never know.

The dark picture with the moon is pretty btw

Good day WA2K.

Thinking about the balloon man:



and remembering



and wishing a Happy 83rd to: