WA2K Radio is now on the air

Good evening to you, hbg. I really like that song, but had no idea that Billie nor that Louis did it. Thanks, buddy, for the musical reminder.

Speaking of eyes, mine are getting rather heavy as I have spent most of the day searching and learning. Not a waste, either.

So, this shall be my good night song.

I'll Close My Eyes
From the Movie "The Bridge of Madison County"
Performed by Dinah Washington

Heaven sends
A song through its doors
Just as if it seems to know
I'm exclusively yours

Knowing this
I feel but one way
You will understand too
In these words that I say

I'll close my eyes
To everyone but you
And when I do
I'll see you standing there

I'll lock my heart
To any other caress
I'll never say yes
To a new love affair

Then I'll close my eyes
To everything that's gay
If you are not there
Oh, to share each lovely day

And through the years
In those moments
When we're far apart
Don't you know I'll close my eyes
And I'll see you with my heart.

Goodnighr, my friends.

From Letty with love

haven't listened to THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND for a while ; so here they are !

Everyday, it's a gettin' closer,
Goin' faster than a roller coaster,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (a hey, hey hey)
Everyday, it's a gettin' faster,
Everyone said go on ask her,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey, a hey hey)

Everyday seems a little longer,
Every way, love's a little stronger,
Come what may, do you ever long for
True love from me?
Everyday, it's a gettin' closer,
Goin' faster than a roller coaster,
Love like yours will surely come my way, (hey, a hey hey)

Love like yours will surely come my way


Everyday
Buddy Holly

Good morning, WA2K listeners and contributors.

hbg, Thanks for the song by that Nitty Gritty bunch. Especially like the lyrics "...it was blowin' in a brass sky, but it won't rain..."

edgar, I do believe that you like Buddy Holly, Texas. <smile> Thanks again for reminding us of that most notable "cricket".

I think most of us know "Dust in the Wind" by Kansas, but while searching out the lyrics, I discovered a song that reminds me somewhat of a painter, but turns out to be about Albert. Let's hear it, shall we?

Kansas Portrait (He Knew)
(Kerry Livgren / Steve Walsh)

He had a thousand ideas, you might have heard his name
He lived alone with his vision
Not looking for fortune or fame
Never said too much to speak of
He was off on another plane
The words that he said were a mystery
Nobody's sure he was sane
But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could see his view, Oh where was he going to
He was in search of an answer
The nature of what we are
He was trying to do it a new way
He was bright as a star
But nobody understood him
His numbers are not the way
He's lost in the deepest enigma
Which no one's unraveled today
But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could see his view, Oh where was he going to
And he tried, but before he could tell us he died
When he left us the people cried,
Oh where was he going to?
He had a different idea
A glimpse of the master plan
He could see into the future
A true visionary man
But there's something he never told us
It died when he went away
If only he could have been with us
No telling what he might say
But he knew, he knew more than me or you
No one could see his view
Oh, where was he going to
But he knew, you could tell by the picture he drew
It was totally something new,
Oh where was he going to?

Eleanor Roosevelt
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Born October 11, 1884(1884-10-11)
New York, New York
Died November 7, 1962 (aged 78)
New York, New York
Political party Democratic
Spouse Franklin D. Roosevelt
Children Anna Eleanor, James, Elliott, Franklin, John
Residence Geneva
Occupation First Lady, diplomat, activist
Religion Episcopal

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt known as Eleanor (IPA: [ˈelɪnɔː ˈɹoʊzəvelt];
October 11, 1884 - November 7, 1962) was an American political leader who used her influence as an active First Lady from 1933 to 1945 to promote the New Deal policies of her husband, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as well as taking a prominent role as an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, she continued to be an internationally prominent author and speaker for the New Deal coalition. She was a suffragist who worked to enhance the status of working women, although she opposed the Equal Rights Amendment because she believed it would adversely affect women. In the 1940s, she was one of the co-founders of Freedom House and supported the formation of the United Nations. Eleanor Roosevelt founded the UN Association of the United States in 1943 to advance support for the formation of the UN. She was a delegate to the UN General Assembly in 1945 and chaired the committee that drafted and approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

President Harry S. Truman called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.

She was one of the most admired persons of the 20th century, according to Gallup's List of Widely Admired People.




Personal life

Early life

Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was born October 11th, 1884, at 56 West 37th Street in New York City, New York. Her parents were Elliott Roosevelt and Anna Hall Roosevelt. She was named Anna for her mother and for her aunt, Anna Cowles and Eleanor for her father, who was nicknamed "Ellie". From the beginning, she preferred to be called by her middle name, Eleanor. Two brothers, Elliott, Jr. (1889-1893) and Hall Roosevelt (1891-1941) were born later. She was born into a world of some wealth and privilege, as her family was part of New York high society called the "swells".[2]

When Eleanor was eight, her mother died of diphtheria and she and her brothers were sent to live with her maternal grandmother, Mary Ludlow Hall (1843-1919) at Tivoli, New York and at a brownstone in New York City. Just before Eleanor turned ten, she was orphaned when her father died of complications of alcoholism. In his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, author Joseph Lash describes her during this period of childhood as insecure and starved for affection, considering herself "ugly". So painfully shy was the unhappy little girl that she could not even spell when called upon in class.[2]In the fall of 1899, with the encouragement of her paternal aunt Bamie Cowles, it was decided to send Eleanor to Allenswood Academy, an English finishing school. The headmistress, Marie Souvestre, was a noted feminist educator who sought to develop independent minds in young women. Eleanor learned to speak French fluently and gained self-confidence. Her first-cousin Corinne Robinson, whose first term at Allenswood overlapped with Eleanor's last, said that when she arrived at the school, Eleanor was "everything".


Marriage and family life

In 1902 at age 17, Eleanor Roosevelt returned to the United States, ending her formal education, and was later given a debutante party. Soon afterward, she became reacquainted with her father's (Elliott Roosevelt's) fifth cousin Franklin D. Roosevelt ("FDR"), then a 20-year old junior at Harvard University. Following a White House reception and dinner with her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, on New Year's Day, 1903, Franklin's courtship of Eleanor began. In November, 1903, they became engaged, although the engagement was not announced for more than a year, until December 1, 1904, at the insistence of FDR's mother, Sara Delano Roosevelt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Anna Eleanor Roosevelt were married on St. Patrick's Day (March 17, 1905) at Eleanor's great-aunt's home in New York City, with her uncle President Theodore Roosevelt giving the bride away. Due to her maiden name being Roosevelt, she is the only First Lady who did not change her name upon marriage. She is also the only First Lady to be the wife, as well as cousin (5th, once removed), of one U.S. President and the niece of another.

Following a honeymoon in Europe, the newlyweds settled in New York City, in a house provided by Sara, as well as at the family's estate overlooking the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. The Roosevelts had six children in rapid succession, all but one of whom survived infancy: Anna Eleanor; James; Franklin Delano, Jr. (who was born and died in 1909); Elliott; a second Franklin Delano; and John Aspinwall.

The family began spending summers at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, on the Maine-Canada border, where Franklin contracted a major paralytic illness in August, 1921. FDR's attending physician, Dr. William Keen, commended Eleanor's devotion to the stricken Franklin during that time of travail, "You have been a rare wife and have borne your heavy burden most bravely", proclaiming her "one of my heroines".[2] Sunrise at Campobello, a play and movie depicting that time, were produced almost forty years later.


Relationship with mother-in-law

Eleanor had a sometimes contentious relationship with her domineering mother-in-law, Sara Delano Roosevelt.[3] Long before Eleanor fell in love with her future husband and distant cousin, Franklin, she already had a relationship with Sara as a distant but highly engaging cousin with whom she corresponded. Although they had a somewhat contentious relationship, Sara sincerely wanted to be a mother to Eleanor and did her best before and during the marriage to fill this role. Sara had her own reasons for attempting to prevent their marriage and historians continue to discuss them. Historians also have had widely diverging opinions on the pluses and minuses of this relationship. [4]

From Eleanor's perspective, she was relatively young, inexperienced and lacked the support from her late mother, Anna Hall Roosevelt. Despite her forceful and domineering personality, Sara had much to teach her new daughter-in-law on what a young wife should know. Eleanor, while sometimes resenting Sara's domineering nature, nevertheless highly valued her opinion in the early years of her marriage until she developed the experience and confidence a wife gains from the school of marital "hard knocks". Historians continue to study the reasons Eleanor allowed Sara to dominate their lives, especially in the first years of the marriage. Eleanor's income was more than half of that of her husband's when they married in 1905 and could have lived still relatively luxuriously without Sara's financial support. [5]

From Sara's perspective, she was bound and determined to ensure her son's success in all areas of life including his marriage. Sara had doted on her son to the point of spoiling him, and now intended to help him make a success of his marriage with a woman that she evidently viewed as being totally unprepared for her new role as chatelaine of a great family. Sara would continue to give huge presents to her new grandchildren, but sometimes Eleanor had problems with the influence that came with "mother's largesse."[2]


Tensions with some "Oyster Bay Roosevelts"

Although Eleanor was always in the good graces of her Uncle Theodore, the paterfamilas of the Oyster Bay Roosevelts, as the Republican branch of the family was known, she often found herself at odds with his eldest daughter, Alice Roosevelt. Uncle Theodore felt Eleanor's conduct to be far more responsible, socially acceptable and cooperative: in short, more "Rooseveltian" than that of the beautiful, highly photogenic but rebellious and self-absorbed Alice, to whom he would ask, "Why can't you be more like 'cousin Eleanor'?" These early experiences laid the foundation for life-long strain between the two high-profile cousins. Eleanor's relationship with her cousin and other Oyster Bay Roosevelts would be aggravated by the widening political gulf between the Hyde Park and Oyster Bay families as Franklin D. Roosevelt's political career began to take off. Characteristically caustic comments by "Cousin Alice", such as her later description of Franklin as "two-thirds mush and one-third Eleanor" certainly did not help. When Franklin was inaugurated president in 1933, Alice was invited to attend along with her brothers, Kermit and Archie.



Franklin's affair

Despite its happy start, the Roosevelts' marriage almost disintegrated over Franklin's affair with Eleanor's social secretary Lucy Mercer (later Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd). When Eleanor learned of the affair from Mercer's letters to FDR, which she discovered in September, 1918, she was brought to despair and self-reproach. She told Franklin she would insist on a divorce if he did not immediately end the affair.[2] So implacable was Sara's opposition to divorce that she warned her son she would disinherit him. Aunt Corinne, Uncle Ted, and Louis Howe, FDR's political advisor, were also influential in persuading Eleanor and Franklin to save the marriage for the sake of the five children and FDR's political career. Furthermore, Lucy Mercer was a Roman Catholic, which made any thought of her marrying a divorced Protestant problematic at best. Franklin agreed not to see Mercer, but much evidence points to a continued affair right up to Franklin's death in 1945 at Warm Springs, Georgia, where Mercer was with FDR when he died.

Although the marriage survived, Eleanor Roosevelt emerged a different woman, coming to the realization that she could achieve fulfillment only through her own influence and life, not someone else's.[2]


Public life in the years before the White House

Following FDR's paralytic illness attack in 1921, Eleanor began serving as a stand-in for her incapacitated husband, making public appearances on his behalf. She also started working with the Women's Trade Union League (WCTU), raising funds in support of the union's goals: a 48-hour work week, minimum wage, and the abolition of child labor.[2]. Throughout the 1920s, she was increasingly influential as a leader in the New York State Democratic Party. In 1924, she actively campaigned for Alfred E. Smith in his successful re-election bid as governor of the Empire State. By 1928, she was actively promoting Smith's candidacy for president and Franklin Roosevelt's nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for governor of New York, succeeding Smith. Although Smith lost, Roosevelt won handily and the Roosevelts moved into the governor's mansion in Albany, New York.

She also taught literature and American history at the Todhunter School for Girls in New York City in the 1920s.


First Lady of the United States (1933-1945)

Having seen her aunt Edith Roosevelt's strictly circumscribed role and traditional protocol during the presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) , Eleanor set out on a different course. Despite criticism, she continued with the active business and speaking agenda she had begun before becoming First Lady, in an era when few women had careers outside the home. She was the first First Lady to hold weekly press conferences and started writing a syndicated newspaper column, "My Day". Eleanor Roosevelt maintained a heavy travel schedule over her twelve years in the White House, frequently making personal appearances at labor meetings to assure Depression-era workers that the White House was mindful of their plight. In one widely-circulated cartoon of the time lampooning the peripatetic First Lady, she was pictured appearing inside a coal mine wearing a miner's hat, to the astonishment of a startled miner who exclaims, "My gosh! There's Mrs. Roosevelt".

During Franklin Roosevelt's terms as President, Eleanor was vocal in her support of the African-American civil rights movement. She was outspoken in her support of Marian Anderson in 1939 when the black singer was denied the use of Washington's Constitution Hall and was instrumental in the subsequent concert held on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Eleanor became an important connection for FDR's administration to the African-American population during the segregation era.


World War II

In 1941, Eleanor Roosevelt joined Wendell Willkie and other Americans concerned about the mounting threats to peace and democracy, in establishing Freedom House. Once the United States entered World War II, she was active on the homefront, co-chairing a national committee on civil defense with New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia and frequently visiting civilian and military centers to boost war morale.

She especially supported more opportunities for women and African-Americans, notably the Tuskegee Airmen in their successful effort to become the first black combat pilots. On a visit to the Tuskegee flying school, circa 1940, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt flew with C. Alfred "Chief" Anderson. Her willingness to fly with a black pilot had great symbolic value and brought visibility and support to Tuskegee's pilot training program.[citation needed]

She was a strong proponent of the Morgenthau Plan to de-industrialize Germany.[6][7][8] And was in 1946 one of the few prominent individuals to remain a member of the campaign group lobbying for a harsh peace for Germany.[9]


The years after the White House

United Nations

In 1946, U.S. President Harry S. Truman appointed Eleanor Roosevelt as a delegate to the United Nations General Assembly. She played an instrumental role, along with René Cassin, John Peters Humphrey and others, in drafting the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Roosevelt served as the first chairperson of the UN Human Rights Commission [10]. On the night of September 28, 1948, Roosevelt spoke on behalf of the Declaration calling it "the international Magna Carta of all mankind" (James 1948). The Declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 10, 1948.[11] The vote of the General Assembly was unanimous except for eight abstentions.

Roosevelt resigned from her UN post in 1952.


Relations with Catholic hierarchy

In July 1949, she had a public disagreement with Francis Cardinal Spellman, the Catholic Archbishop of New York, which was characterized as "a battle still remembered for its vehemence and hostility".[12][13] In her columns, Eleanor had attacked proposals for federal funding of certain nonreligious activities at parochial schools, such as bus transportation for students. Spellman cited the Supreme Court's decision which upheld such provisions, accusing her of anti-Catholicism. Most Democrats rallied behind Roosevelt, and Cardinal Spellman eventually met with Eleanor Roosevelt at her Hyde Park home to quell the dispute. However, Eleanor maintained her belief that Catholic schools should not receive federal aid, evidently heeding the writings of secularists such as Paul Blanshard.[14]

During the Spanish Civil War, she favored the republican Loyalists against General Francisco Franco's Nationalists; after 1945, she opposed normalizing relations with Spain.[15] She told Spellman bluntly that "I cannot however say that in European countries the control by the Roman Catholic Church of great areas of land has always led to happiness for the people of those countries." [16] Her son Elliott Roosevelt suggested that her "reservations about Catholicism" were rooted in her husband's sexual affairs with Lucy Mercer and Missy LeHand, who were both Catholics.[17]

Her defenders deny that Eleanor Roosevelt was anti-Catholic, citing her public support of Al Smith, a Catholic, in the 1928 presidential campaign and her statement to a New York Times reporter that year quoting her uncle, President Theodore Roosevelt, in expressing "the hope to see the day when a Catholic or a Jew would become president" (New York Times, January 25, 1928).[2]


Postwar politics

In 1954, Tammany Hall boss Carmine DeSapio campaigned against Eleanor's son, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., during the New York Attorney General elections, which Franklin (Jr.) lost. Roosevelt held DeSapio responsible for her son's defeat and grew increasingly disgusted with his political conduct through the rest of the 1950s. Eventually, she would join with her old friends Herbert Lehman and Thomas Finletter to form the New York Committee for Democratic Voters, a group dedicated to enhancing the democratic process by opposing DeSapio's reincarnated Tammany. Their efforts were eventually successful, and DeSapio was removed from power in 1961. [18]


Eleanor was a close friend of Adlai Stevenson and supported his candidacies in the 1952 and 1956 presidential elections. When President Truman backed New York Governor W. Averell Harriman, who was a close associate of Carmine DeSapio, for the Democratic presidential nomination, Roosevelt was disappointed but continued to support Stevenson who ultimately won the nomination. She backed Stevenson once again in 1960 primarily to block John F. Kennedy, who nevertheless received the presidential nomination.[19] However, she nevertheless worked hard to promote the Kennedy-Johnson ticket in 1960 and was appointed to policy-making positions by the young president.

By the 1950s Roosevelt's international role as spokesperson for women led her to stop publicly attacking the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). But she never supported it and never thought it was wise. In 1961, President Kennedy's undersecretary of labor, Esther Peterson, who was a former union official and an adamant foe of the ERA, proposed a new "President's Commission on the Status of Women". Kennedy appointed Roosevelt to chair the commission, with Peterson as director. Roosevelt died just before the commission issued its final report. It was a massive study that restated the decades-old stance that female equality was best achieved by recognition of gender differences and needs, and not by an Equal Rights Amendment.[20]

Roosevelt was responsible for the eventual establishment, in 1964, of the 2,800 acre (11 km²) ([1]) Roosevelt Campobello International Park on Campobello Island, New Brunswick, Canada. This followed a gift of the Roosevelt summer estate to the Canadian and American governments.


Honors and awards

Roosevelt received 35 honorary degrees during her life, compared to 31 awarded to her husband. Her first, a Doctor of Humane Letters or D.H.L. on June 13, 1929, was also the first honorary degree awarded by Russell Sage College in Troy, New York. Her last was a Doctor of Laws, LL.D. degree granted by what is now Clark Atlanta University in June 1962.

In 1968, she was awarded one of the United Nations Human Rights Prizes. There was an unsuccessful campaign to award her a posthumous Nobel Peace Prize; however, it has only once been awarded posthumously.[21]


Later life

Following FDR's death in 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt moved from the White House to Val-Kill Cottage in Hyde Park, New York, where she lived the rest of her life.

Eleanor Roosevelt was a member of the Brandeis University Board of Trustees, delivering the University's first commencement speech, and joined the Brandeis faculty as a visiting lecturer in international relations at the age of 75.

In 1960, Greer Garson played Eleanor Roosevelt in the movie Sunrise at Campobello, which portrayed Eleanor's instrumental role during Franklin Roosevelt's paralytic illness and his protracted struggle to reenter politics in its aftermath.

Later that year, on November 15, she met for the last time with former US President, Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess, at the Truman Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri. Roosevelt had raised considerable funds for the erection and dedication of the building. The Trumans would later attend Roosevelt's memorial service in Hyde Park, NY in November, 1962.

In 1961, all volumes of Eleanor Roosevelt's autobiography, which she had begun writing in 1937, were compiled into The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, which is still in print (Da Capo Press, ISBN 0-306-80476-X).

In 1960, at age 76, Eleanor Roosevelt was injured when she was struck by a car in New York City and was subsequently diagnosed with aplastic anemia. During treatment of the disease, she developed bone marrow tuberculosis, recurring from a primary 1919 infection for which she was initially advised to see a physician and chose not to. Roosevelt died at her Manhattan apartment on November 7, 1962 at 6:15 p.m., at the age of 78.[22] At her memorial service, Adlai Stevenson asked, "What other single human being has touched and transformed the existence of so many?" Stevenson also said that Roosevelt was someone "who would rather light a candle than curse the darkness."


Eleanor was buried next to Franklin at the family compound in Hyde Park, New York on November 10, 1962. A laconic cartoon published at the time showed two angels looking down towards an opening in the clouds with the caption "She's here".

Eleanor Roosevelt, who considered herself plain and craved affection as a child, had in the end transcended whatever shortcomings she felt were hers to bring comfort and hope to many, becoming one of the most admired figures of the 20th century.

Jerome Robbins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Jerome Rabinowitz
Born October 11, 1918
New York City, New York
Died July 29, 1998
New York City, New York
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Director
1961 West Side Story
Academy Honorary Award
1962 Lifetime Achievement
Tony Awards
Best Choreography
1948 High Button Shoes
1958 West Side Story
1965 Fiddler on the Roof
Best Direction of a Musical
1965 Fiddler on the Roof
1989 Jerome Robbins' Broadway

Jerome Robbins (October 11, 1918 - July 29, 1998) was an American choreographer whose work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater. Among the numerous stage productions he worked on were On The Town, High Button Shoes, The King And I, The Pajama Game, Bells Are Ringing, West Side Story, Gypsy: A Musical Fable and Fiddler on the Roof.





Youth

Robbins was born "Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz" on October 11, 1918, exactly one month before the end of World War I, in the Jewish Maternity Hospital in the heart of Manhattan's Lower East Side - a neighborhood populated by many immigrants. The Rabinowitz family lived in a large apartment house at 51 East 97th at the northeast corner of Madison Avenue. Known as "Jerry" to his loved ones, Robbins was given a middle name that reflected his parents' patriotic enthusiasm for the then-president. Rabinowitz, however, translates to "son of a rabbi", a name Robbins never liked, since it marked him as the son of an immigrant.

In the early 1920s, the Rabinowitz family moved to Weehawken, New Jersey. 10 years earlier, Fred and Adele Astaire had lived there briefly as children, only a block away from one of Robbins' boyhood homes. His father and uncle opened the "Comfort Corset Company," a unique venture for the family, which had many show business connections, including vaudeville performers and theater owners.

Robbins began college studying Chemistry at New York University (NYU) but dropped out after a year for financial reasons and to pursue dance. He studied at the New Dance League, learning ballet with Ella Daganova, Antony Tudor and Eugene Loring; modern dance; Spanish dancing with the famed Helen Veola; folk dance with Yeichi Nimura; and dance composition with Bessie Schoenberg.


Career

For much of his life, Robbins pursued a career in both ballet and Broadway theatre. He lived in a world of like-minded collaborators, most of whom were his age, Jewish, New Yorkers, leftist and -- among the men -- gay.[1]


1930's and 40's

By 1939, Robbins was dancing in the chorus of such Broadway shows as Great Lady, The Straw Hat Revue and Keep off the Grass, which George Balanchine choreographed. Robbins was also dancing and choreographing at Camp Tamiment in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. Here he choreographed many dramatic pieces with controversial ideas about race, lynching, and war. But in 1940, he turned his back (albeit temporarily) on the theater and joined the Ballet Theatre (later known as the American Ballet Theatre). From 1941 through 1944, Robbins was a soloist with the company, gaining notice for his Hermes in Helen of Troy, the Moor in Petrouchka and Benvolio in Romeo and Juliet.

At this time, Broadway dance was changing. Agnes de Mille had brought not just ballet to Oklahoma! but had also made dance an integral part of the drama of the musical. Challenged, Robbins choreographed and performed in Fancy Free, a ballet about sailors at liberty, at the Metropolitan Opera as part of the Ballet Theatre season in 1944. The inspiration for Fancy Free came from Paul Cadmus' 1934 painting called The Fleet's In![1] which is part of the Sailor Trilogy. Robbins was recommended for a ballet based on the art work by his friend Mary Hunter Wolf. Distancing himself from the controversial homosexual content, Robbins said in an interview with The Christian Science Monitor,

"After seeing...Fleet's In, which I inwardly rejected though it gave me the idea of doing the ballet, I watched sailors, and girls, too, all over town."

He went on to say

"I wanted to show that the boys in the service are healthy, vital boys: there is nothing sordid or morbid about them".

Oliver Smith, set designer and collaborator on Fancy Free, knew Leonard Bernstein and eventually Robbins and Bernstein met to work on the music. This would be the first of several collaborative efforts. Fancy Free was a great success.

Later that year, Robbins conceived and choreographed On the Town (1944), a musical partly inspired by Fancy Free, which effectively launched his Broadway career. Once again Bernstein wrote the music and Smith designed the sets. The book and lyrics were by a team that Robbins would work with again, Betty Comden and Adolph Green. His next musical was Billion Dollar Baby (1945). Two years later, he received plaudits for his hilarious Keystone Kops ballet in High Button Shoes.


1950's

During this period, Robbins continued to create dances for the Ballet Theatre, alternating between musicals and ballet for the better part of the next two decades. Barely a year went by without a new Robbins ballet and a new Robbins musical. With George Balanchine he choreographed Jones Beach at the City Center Theater in 1950, and directed and choreographed Irving Berlin's Call Me Madam, starring Ethel Merman.

In 1951, Robbins created the now-celebrated dance sequences in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King & I (including the March of the Siamese Children, the ballet The Small House of Uncle Thomas and the "Shall We Dance?" polka between the two leads). That same year, he created The Cage for the New York City Ballet, with which he was now associated. He also performed, uncredited, show doctoring on the musicals A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (1951); Wish You Were Here (1952); and Wonderful Town (1953).

Robbins collaborated with George Abbott on The Pajama Game (1954), which launched the career of Shirley MacLaine, worked on the 1955 Mary Martin vehicle, Peter Pan (recreated for the small screen in 1955, 1956 and 1960) and directed and co-choreographed (with Bob Fosse) Bells Are Ringing (1956), starring Judy Holliday. In 1957, he conceived, choreographed and directed a show that some feel is his crowning achievement: West Side Story.

West Side Story is a modern-day (for 1957) version of Romeo and Juliet, set in Hell's Kitchen. The musical marked the first collaboration between Robbins and Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics. The two, along with book writer Arthur Laurents and composer Leonard Bernstein, worked well together, only disagreeing on minor issues such as whether the lead character Maria should die. To help the young cast grow into their roles, Robbins did not allow those playing members of opposite gangs (Jets and Sharks) to mix during the rehearsal process. The original Broadway production featured Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita. Although it opened to good reviews, it was overshadowed by Meredith Willson's The Music Man at that year's Tony Awards. West Side Story did, however, earn Robbins his second Tony Award for choreography, and is now hailed as a groundbreaking classic.

The streak of hits continued with Gypsy (1959), starring Ethel Merman. Robbins re-teamed with Sondheim and Laurents, and the music was by Jule Styne. The musical is based--loosely--on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee.


House Un-American Activities Committee

While Robbins' career seemed to be a charmed one, it was not without a period of difficulty. In the early 1950s, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC), suspected of Communist sympathies. Robbins named names along with Sterling Hayden, Burl Ives, Elia Kazan and Lela Rogers (mother of Ginger Rogers). Because he cooperated with HUAC, Robbins' career did not suffer and he was not blacklisted. Robbins named more names than any other HUAC witness.


1960's

In 1962, Robbins tried his hand at a straight play, directing Arthur Kopit's unconventional Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama's Hung You in the Closet and I'm Feelin' So Sad. The production ran over a year off-Broadway and was transferred to Broadway for a short run in 1963,

Robbins was still highly sought after as a show doctor. He took over the direction of two troubled productions during this period and helped turn them into smashes. In 1962, he saved A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), a musical farce starring Zero Mostel, Jack Gilford, David Burns and John Carradine. The production, with book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, and songs by Stephen Sondheim, was not working. Robbins staged an entirely new opening number which explained to the audience what was to follow, and the show played beautifully from then on. In 1964 he took on a floundering Funny Girl and devised a show that ran 1348 performances. The musical helped turn lead Barbra Streisand into a superstar.

That same year, Robbins won matching Tony Awards for his direction and choreography in Fiddler on the Roof (1964). The show starred Zero Mostel as Tevye and ran for 3242 performances, setting the record (since surpassed) for longest-running Broadway musical. The plot, about Jews living in Russia near the beginning of the 20th century, is based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem. The subject matter allowed Robbins to return to his religious roots.


1970's and 80's

Never deserting the ballet, he continued to choreograph and stage productions for both the Joffrey Ballet and the New York City Ballet into the 1970s.

Robbins became ballet master of the New York City Ballet in 1972 and worked almost exclusively in classical dance throughout the next decade, pausing only to stage revivals of West Side Story (1980) and Fiddler on the Roof (198). In 1981, his Chamber Dance Company toured the People's Republic of China.

The 1980s saw an increased presence on TV as NBC aired Live From Studio 8H: An Evening of Jerome Robbins' Ballets with Members of the New York City Ballet, and a retrospective of Robbins' choreography aired on PBS in a 1986 installment of Dance in America. The latter led to his creating the anthology show Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989 which recreated the most successful production numbers from his 50-plus year career. Starring Jason Alexander as the narrator, the show included stagings of cut numbers like Irving Berlin's Mr. Monotony and well-known ones like the "Tradition" number from Fiddler on the Roof. For his efforts, he earned a fifth Tony Award.

Death

Following a bicycle accident in 1990 and heart-valve surgery in 1994; in 1996 he began showing signs of a form of Parkinson's disease and his hearing was quickly getting worse. However, he insisted on staging Les Noces for City Ballet in 1998. It was the last thing he did. He suffered a massive stroke two months later, and he died at his home in New York on July 29, 1998. On the evening of his death, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for a moment in tribute. In the more than sixty years in which he had been active in the theater, he had transformed it.


Notable awards

On screen, Robbins recreated his stage dances for The King and I (1956) and shared the Best Director Oscar with Robert Wise for the film version of West Side Story (1961). That same year, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored him with a special award for his choreographic achievements on film. By the end of his life in 1998, he would be awarded 5 Tony Awards, 2 Academy Awards, a Kennedy Center Honor, the National Medal of the Arts, the French Legion of Honor, three Honorary Doctorates, and an Honorary Membership in the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

Daryl Hall
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Daryl Franklin Hohl
Born October 11, 1946 (1946-10-11) (age 60)
Origin Pottstown, Pennsylvania U.S.
Genre(s) Blue-eyed soul
Soul rock
Pop rock
Instrument(s) Vocals
Guitar
Keyboards
Years active 1967 - present
Label(s) Atlantic Records

RCA Records
Epic Records
Arista Records
U-Watch Records

Associated
acts Hall & Oates
Website hallandoates.com

Daryl Hall (born Daryl Franklin Hohl on October 11, 1946, Pottstown, Pennsylvania) is an American singer and songwriter best known as half of the music duo Hall & Oates (with music partner John Oates).







Biography

Early life and career

His mother played songs by Frank Sinatra to him as a child, and he later became a fan of Motown and other R&B/soul music. He took piano lessons as a child, but he did not like them. He would skip the lessons and ride his bicycle across the bridge from his grandfather's farm over to the heart of the black "Chicken Hill" ghetto, where he could just listen and absorb the music.

In the 1960s, Hall attended Temple University, but did not graduate, preferring instead to spend his time singing on the street corners and playing with various musicians and groups. At that time, Daryl Hohl (as he was called then) sang backup for different bands. He eventually changed his last name to Hall. Daryl Hall idolized the Temptations and began to perform session work as a singer. He first met John Oates at a band competition.

After John transferred to a different school, Daryl joined the band Gulliver, which released one eponymous album in 1969 before being dropped from their label.


Hall and Oates

The duo was formed in 1972, when Oates returned to Philadelphia.

The group enjoyed considerable mainstream success, with several #1 singles and a number of top 40 hits from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s.


Solo projects

In 1977, Daryl Hall completed his first solo effort, Sacred Songs, produced by Robert Fripp. RCA thought the album was uncommercial, however, and it was not released at the time. Hall and Fripp passed out demos to radio stations, generating strong interest in Sacred Songs. Though rooted in the R&B and Philly soul of Hall's prior music, the album was also reminiscent of experimenters such as David Bowie and Brian Eno. Hall also sang on Fripp's solo debut Exposure (1979).

Fripp and Hall so enjoyed working together that they seriously considered forming a full-time band (with bassist Tony Levin and drummer Jerry Marotta), but plans fell through, and the band Fripp envisioned eventually morphed into the 1980s version of King Crimson.

Hall & Oates went on a break after the 1985 tour. Hall was influenced to go to England and meet with Dave Stewart of the electro-pop duo group Eurythmics. The resulting solo album Hall released was Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine. It included a #5 hit "Dreamtime" and a Top 40 hit with "Foolish Pride." It also contained perhaps a hint of Hall's future solo projects, with the song "Someone Like You." Despite Stewart's co-production and guest background vocals from Joni Mitchell and Bob Geldof, RCA considered this album a commercial disappointment. It should be noted, however, that RCA did not promote this album at the level of the Hall & Oates' previous albums, which upset Hall for years afterward. This was also the last album in the RCA deal with Hall & Oates. Hall performed a featured solo in the 1985 charity single "We Are the World" in 1985.

In 1993, Daryl Hall released his third solo album on Epic, called Soul Alone. Distinct from the "Hall & Oates sound," this album features a more soulful and jazzy feel. However, Epic failed to find a marketing niche for Hall's new sound. Despite one single being released, ("Philly Mood"), the album was not a commercial success. In 1994 he released a duet with Dusty Springfield, Wherever Would I Be?, which charted in the UK, and was featured in the movie While You Were Sleeping.

On the occasion of the 1994 FIFA World Cup in United States, Daryl Hall sang the official anthem, "Gloryland", with gospel group Sounds of Blackness.[1]

Hall has also released a fourth solo album called Can't Stop Dreaming and fifth Live In Philadelphia compilation. He is also featured on Kenny G's "At Last...The Duets Album" doing a collaboration with the saxophonist on a version of James Ingram's "Baby, Come To Me".

In July 2005 Hall was diagnosed with Lyme Disease causing him to cancel a majority of Hall & Oates' summer tour. Hall has reported that he is feeling better and he continues to tour with John Oates. Hall released a Christmas album with John Oates in October, 2006 called Home for Christmas.

In 2007 Hall guest starred on the HBO series Flight of the Conchords.

Birth Name: Joan Cusack

Birthdate: Oct. 11, 1962

Birthplace: New York, NY


Most young actresses would shun being cast as the geeky sidekick, as Joan was early in her career. But the classically trained actress honed her schtick and wound up with a spot on the Saturday Night Live cast (1985-1986). Hollywood fell for Joan's charisma, too, and cast her in Broadcast News, Married to the Mob and Working Girl, for which she earned a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nod. Ten years later, she earned her second Oscar nod for In & Out, playing a bride-to-be who gets ditched by her outed fiancee. The mom-of-two doesn't take a lot of high-profile roles these days, but keeps busy with steady voice work for animated films, constant guest spots in brother John's films, and the occasional standout supporting showcase, such as 2006's Friends With Money.




Joan has appeared in eight films with her brother, John: Class (1983), Sixteen Candles (1984), Grandview, U.S.A. (1984), Broadcast News (1987), Say Anything… (1989), Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Cradle Will Rock (1999) and High Fidelity (2000)
She was the first regular cast member of Saturday Night Live to be nominated for an Academy Award.
She starred in her own sitcom, What About Joan on ABC from 2001-2002.
Joan is a trained singer, often lending her voice to her film work.
She studied acting at the Piven Theater Workshop in Evanston, Illinois.


Quote:

On type-casting: "There are way more different character roles for men than there are for women. With women, it's usually you're the babe or you're the supportive friend, sort of brassy and obnoxious, cracking jokes. I'm not the babe."


Family:

Husband: Richard Burke, attorney; married 1993-present
Son: Dylan John Burke, born June 1997
Son: Miles, born July 2000


Awards:

1989: Academy Award nomination: Best Actress in a Supporting Role, Working Girl

1998: Academy Award nomination: Best Actress in a Supporting Role, In & Out.
1998: Golden Globe nomination: Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture, In & Out.

During a commercial airline flight a Navy Pilot was seated next to a young mother with a babe in arms. When her baby began crying during the descent for landing, the mother began nursing her infant as discreetly as possible. The pilot pretended not to notice and, upon debarking, he gallantly offered his assistance to help with the various baby-related impedimenta. When the young mother expressed her gratitude,
the pilot responded, 'Gosh, that's a good looking baby...and he sure was hungry!' Somewhat embarrassed, the mother explained that
her pediatrician said breast feeding would help alleviate the pressure in the baby's ears.
The Navy Pilot sadly shook his head, and in true pilot fashion exclaimed... .....
'.. And all these years I've been chewing gum.'

Ah, Bob, those navy guys know how to innuendo, right? Thanks for the great bio's Boston.

Until you know who does you know what, here is a song by Hall and Oats.

Not certain to whom they are referring, however.

He's back together again
Yeah ev'ryone is glad that he's together again
Just like the old days, old days, old days
yeah he could sing, he could sing, he could sing
He's back together again

You know he's still got the moves
You know the grooves still there
Just like the old days old days, old days
Yeah he could sing, he could sing, Listen to him sing

Back together again, back together again
singing the same old story
Back together again, back together again
The old songs never end
Gives you something to believe in

Remember sixty-five?
Well the kids are all grown up
But their records are still alive
Just like the old days, old days, old days
Yeah he could sing, he could sing, he could sing
He's back riding high
The charts are full of love, he's on ev'rybody's dial
Just like the old days, old days, old days
Yeah he could sing, he could sing
Listen to him sing

Back together again, back together again
Singing the same old story
Back together again, back together again
The old songs never end
That's you something to believe in
The old songs never end
Oh just listen to him sing

Back together again, back together again
Singing the same old story
Back together again, back together again
The old songs never end
And that's something to believe in

Oh Letty, I have been going nuts trying to remember a song that was written about Nantasket Beach in Hull, MA. Maybe Bobhawksmyth might remember it? Please ask.

Oops, seaglass, I thought you said Nantucket Beach and went in the wrong direction; however, this Billy Joel song is nice so while I look, y'all listen.

The Downeaster Alexa Lyrics
Artist: Billy Joel

Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"
And I'm cruising through Long Island Sound
I have chartered a course to the Vineyard
But tonight I am Nantucket bound

We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday
And left this morning from the bell in Gardner's Bay
Like all the locals here I've had to sell my home
Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone

So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"
And I go where the ocean is deep
There are giants out there in the canyons
And a good captain can't fall asleep

I've got bills to pay and children who need clothes
I know there's fish out there but where God only knows
They say these waters aren't what they used to be
But I've got people back on land who count on me

So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"
And if you work with the rod and the reel
Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis
And I still have my hands on the wheel

Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"
More and more miles from shore every year
Since they told me I can't sell no stripers
And there's no luck in swordfishing here

I was a bayman like my father was before
Can't make a living as a bayman anymore
There ain't much future for a man who works the sea
But there ain't no island left for islanders like me

Try this, seaglass.

Artists in Hull

I'm trying to remember a specific song, which may be my imagination - but I can remember hanging out in a bar room at Nantasket Beach called
Shirleys and at a certain hour of the night (closing) all the locals would get sentimental and sing this song. Then there was this fabulous old dude called Doc (that had been a beloved dentist and selectman) would tell outrageous stories about Massachusetts pols.

Age has dimmed my memory.

Good afternoon WA2K.

Hope Sglass finds her song.

Eleanor Roosevelt, Jerome Robbins, Daryl Hall and Joan Cusack

I've been searching, seaglass, but no luck.

Hey Raggedy, thanks again for the wonderful photo's. Found this delightful song, PA

The Mirror Song (feat. Robin Williams & Joan Cusack)

Memories of things that never happened
these are always the hardest to forget
all the old friends and the loved ones
these are the people you haven't even met
looking forward into the old days
looking back at what there will be
there's no reality it's just an illusion
there's no real sanity just plain confusion
how do you feel?
well I don't know just how I feel
all I know that I love you girl (what is real)
it's so real, so real, surreal
here we go
there is no single circumstance I never took a final chance
I made it something that you can see and touch forever
I always looked the same from every angle and never cast a shadow
that would change the way you thought about your very being
that what what you were seeing would always be
would always be
would always be the truth
how do you feel?
well I don't know just how I feel
all I know that I love you girl (what is real)
it's so real, so real, surreal
it's so real, so real, surreal
it's so real, so real, surreal
ooh it's so real, so real, surreal
oh all right ahhh!
well I don't know just how I feel

Back later with an announcement of the Nobel prize winner in the field of literature.

Doris Lessing wins Nobel prize for literature.


Jonathan Player for The New York Times

Announcing the award in Stockholm, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with skepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilization to scrutiny." The award comes with a 10 million Swedish crown honorarium, about $1.6 million.
Ms. Lessing, who turns 88 later this month, never finished high school and largely educated herself through her voracious reading. She had been born to British parents in what is now Iran, was raised in colonial Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and now lives in London. She has written dozens of books of fiction, as well as plays, non-fiction and an autobiography. She is the 11th woman to win a Nobel Prize in literature.

I recall one short story by her called The Tunnel (I think) It was a rites of passage thing.

Sglass
I looked and the best I came up with is #10 on this site?
http://cdbaby.com/cd/dillonbustin
Even if it isn't the song you are looking for, I kinda like it

Really interesting, apparently lyrics of Ralph Waldo Emerson put to music.

Thank you for looking.

But not the song I'm looking for. I'll keep trying.

Thanks again.

seaglass, about three o'clock in the morning you will awaken with that song in your head.

Let's do one for Eleanor Roosevelt, folks.

Jonathan Sprout

A child of misfortune,
Had her share of tears.
And losing both her parents.....

So when this shy and simple lady
Became the President's wife,
She found that helping other people.....

Casual and friendly
With a heart of gold,
She brought her warm compassion
To the lonely and the cold.

Champion of the needy.
Strength in every word,
She became the voice of others.....

REFRAIN:
And Eleanor always took a stand
For the hungry and the homeless all across the land.
Oh Eleanor, it was not the life you planned,
But you knew it made you happy to lend a helping hand.

A most admired woman,
She was "Eleanor Everywhere.".....

She went all around the world
Not afraid to fight
For the cause of every human,....

REFRAIN

Though she had her share of broken dreams,
Mrs. Roosevelt would live
Defending simple human rights
With a heart that had to give.

REFRAIN