WA2K Radio is now on the air

Love that song by Shirley, Francis. Wonder who did that originally?

Here's one by old blue eyes, folks, that says the same thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UsSa5NRVfw&feature=related

Hey Letty....

Yep Yep Yep - I love Michael Buble.


However....
"Fly Me to the Moon" is a pop standard song written by Bart Howard in 1954. When introduced by Felicia Sanders on the cabaret circuit, it was originally titled "In Other Words". The song became popularly called "Fly Me to the Moon" from its first line, but it took a few years for the publishers to change the title officially.

History
It was first recorded in 1954 by Kaye Ballard, and released by Decca Records as catalog number 29114. In 1956 it was recorded by Portia Nelson for her album, Let Me Love You. The same year, Johnny Mathis recorded the song, this was the first time the title "Fly Me to the Moon" appeared on a record label.

The original singer of "Fly Me to the Moon", Felicia Sanders, recorded the song in 1959. It was released on Decca Records as catalog number 30937.

In 1962, an instrumental version was recorded as "Fly Me to the Moon - Bossa Nova" by Joe Harnell, which became the biggest chart hit version of the song, reaching #14 on the U.S. pop singles charts.



Frank Sinatra recorded the song on his 1964 album It Might as Well Be Swing, accompanied by Count Basie, in an arrangement by Quincy Jones. This became the rendition that many people identified the song with. Sinatra's recording was played by the astronauts of Apollo 10, on their lunar mission. [1] Sinatra also performed the song with Basie on 1966's Sinatra at the Sands, and on 1994's Duets II, his final recording of "Fly Me to the Moon" and his final collaboration with Antonio Carlos Jobim. He also performed this song in 1969 TV-show "Sinatra", there he dedicated it to the astronauts "who made the impossible possible".

The Frank Sinatra....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rAsoLm1Ges

Izzie, thanks for tbe background on that song. I had no idea about its origins, and Frankie still does a great job in spite of the fact that his life was less than perfect.

Here's another that I think we all know, folks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8nf1236LRw&feature=related

Calamity Jane
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Martha Jane Cannary-Burke, better known as Calamity Jane (May 1, 1852 - August 1, 1903), was a frontierswoman and professional scout best known for her claim of being a close friend of Wild Bill Hickok, but also for having gained fame fighting Native Americans.





Biography

Early life: 1852 - 1870

Cannary was born on May 1, 1852 as Martha Jane Cannary in Princeton, Missouri, the oldest of six children, having two brothers and three sisters. Robert W. and Charlotte Cannary are listed in the 1860 census living in Ravanna, Mercer County, Missouri. Robert packed his family and moved by wagon train from Missouri to Virginia City, Montana in 1865. Charlotte died along the way in Black Foot, Montana in 1866 of "washtub pneumonia". In the spring of that year, Robert took his six children on to Utah, arriving in Salt Lake City in the summer. They were there a year before he died in 1867. At the tender age of 15, Martha Jane took over as head of the family, loaded up the wagon once more, and took her siblings to Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory. They arrived in May of 1868. From there they traveled to Piedmont, Wyoming, on the Union Pacific Railroad.

In Piedmont, Martha Jane took whatever jobs she could to provide for her large family. She worked as a dishwasher, a cook, a waitress, a dance-hall girl, a nurse, and an ox team driver. Finally, in 1870, she found work as a scout at Fort Russell.

From her autobiography of 1896, Martha Jane writes of this time:

"While on the way, the greater portion of my time was spent in hunting along with the men and hunters of the party; in fact, I was at all times with the men when there was excitement and adventures to be had. By the time we reached Virginia City, I was considered a remarkable good shot and a fearless rider for a girl of my age. I remember many occurrences on the journey from Missouri to Montana. Many times in crossing the mountains, the conditions of the trail were so bad that we frequently had to lower the wagons over ledges by hand with ropes, for they were so rough and rugged that horses were of no use.
"We also had many exciting times fording streams, for many of the streams in our way were noted for quicksands and boggy places, where, unless we were very careful, we would have lost horses and all. Then we had many dangers to encounter in the way of streams swelling on account of heavy rains. On occasions of that kind, the men would usually select the best places to cross the streams; myself, on more than one occasion, have mounted my pony and swam across the stream several times merely to amuse myself, and have had many narrow escapes from having both myself and pony washed away to certain death, but, as the pioneers of those days had plenty of courage, we overcame all obstacles and reached Virginia City in safety."
Accounts from this period described Cannary as being "extremely attractive" and a "pretty, dark-eyed girl." Cannary received little to no formal education but was literate. She moved on to a rougher, mostly outdoor adventurous life on the Great Plains.


Scout: 1870 - 1876

Wearing the uniform of a soldier, Martha Jane began her career as a scout. According to her biography, she joined with Custer. As historians have since discovered, she was prone to exaggerations and lies about her exploits, and no evidence exists that Custer was ever at Fort Russell. One source states she more likely served with General George Crook, stationed at Fort Fetterman, Wyoming. [1]

Whichever account is true, this is the time she started dressing like a man. She states:

"Up to this time, I had always worn the costume of my sex. When I joined Custer, I donned the uniform of a soldier. It was a bit awkward at first, but I soon got to be perfectly at home in men's clothes."
Cannary did serve in one campaign in which Lt Colonel Custer was involved, following the spring of 1872. Custer and Generals Miles, Terry and Crook were dispatched with their forces to handle Indian uprisings near present day Sheridan, Wyoming, which would be called the "Mussel Shell Indian Outbreak", and is also referred to as the "Nursey Pursey Indian Outbreak". This is the only confirmed opportunity Calamity had to meet Custer, although it is unlikely that she did.

Following that campaign, in 1874, her detachment was ordered to Fort Custer, where they remained until the following spring. During this campaign (and others involving Custer and Crook together), she was not attached to Custer's command.


Acquiring the nickname

Cannary was involved in several campaigns in the long-running military conflicts with Native Americans. One story, told by her, has her acquiring the nickname "Calamity Jane" in 1872 by rescuing her superior, Captain Egan, from an ambush near Sheridan, Wyoming, in an area known then as Goose Creek, Wyoming. However, even back then not everyone accepted her version, and in another story it is said that she acquired it as a result of her warnings to men that to offend her was to "court calamity". One verified story about "Calamity Jane" is that in 1875 her detachment was ordered to the Big Horn River, under General Crook. Bearing important dispatches, she swam the Platte River and traveled 90 miles (145 km) at top speed while wet and cold to deliver them. Afterwards, she became ill. After recuperating for a few weeks, she rode to Fort Laramie, Wyoming, and later, in July 1876, she joined a wagon train headed north, which is where she first met Bill Hickok, contrary to her later claims.


Deadwood and Wild Bill Hickok: 1876 - 1881

Calamity Jane accompanied the Newton-Jenney Party into the Black Hills in 1875, along with California Joe and Valentine McGillycuddy.

In 1876, Calamity Jane settled in the area of Deadwood, South Dakota, in the Black Hills. There, she became friends with, and was occasionally employed by, Dora DuFran, the Black Hills leading Madame. She became friendly with Wild Bill Hickok and Charlie Utter, having travelled with them to Deadwood in Utter's wagon train. Jane greatly admired Hickok (to the point of infatuation), and she was obsessed with his personality and life.

After Hickok was killed during a poker game on August 2, 1876, Calamity Jane claimed to have been married to Hickok and that Hickok was the father of her child (Jane), whom she said was born on September 25, 1873, and whom she later put up for adoption by Jim O'Neil and his wife. No records are known to exist which prove the birth of a child, and the romantic slant to the relationship might have been a fabrication. During the period that the alleged child was born, she was working as a scout for the Army. At the time of his death, Hickok was newly married to Agnes Lake Thatcher, formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming.

However, on September 6, 1941, the U.S. Department of Public Welfare did grant old age assistance to a Jean Hickok Burkhardt McCormick (name of her 3rd husband), who claimed to be the legal offspring of Martha Jane Cannary and James Butler Hickok, after being presented with evidence that Calamity Jane and Wild Bill had married at Benson's Landing, Montana Territory, on September 25, 1873, documentation being written in a Bible and presumably signed by two reverends and numerous witnesses. The claim of Jean Hickok McCormick was later proved to be spurious by the Hickok family. (Rosa, Joseph- "They Called Him Wild Bill")[3] [4] [5] [6]

Jane also claimed that following Hickok's death, she went after Jack McCall, his murderer, with a meat cleaver, having left her guns at her residence in the excitement of the moment. However, she never confronted McCall. Following McCall's eventual hanging for the offense, Jane continued living in the Deadwood area for some time, and at one point she did help save several passengers of an overland stagecoach by diverting several Plains Indians who were in pursuit of the stage. The stagecoach driver, John Slaughter, was killed during the pursuit, and Jane took over the reins and drove the stage on to its destination at Deadwood. [7] Also in late 1876, Jane nursed the victims of a smallpox epidemic in the Deadwood area.


Final years: 1881 - 1903

In 1881, she bought a farm close to Yellowstone Park where she kept an inn. After marrying the Texan, Clinton Burke, and moving to Boulder, she again tried her luck in this business. In 1887, she had a daughter, Jane, who was given to foster parents.

In 1893, Calamity Jane started to appear in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as a horse rider and a trick shooter. She also participated in the Pan-American Exposition. At that time, she was depressive and an alcoholic.[citation needed]

By the turn of the century, Madame Dora DuFran was still going strong when Jane returned to the Black Hills in 1903. For the next few months, Jane earned her keep by cooking and doing the laundry for Dora's brothel girls in Belle Fourche. In July, she travelled to Terry, South Dakota. While staying in the Calloway Hotel on August 1, 1903, she died at the age of 55. In her belongings, a bundle of letters to her daughter were found, which she had never sent. Some of these letters were set to music in an art song cycle by 20th century composer Libby Larsen called Songs From Letters. There is no significant evidence to prove she was the actual author of these letters. She was buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery (South Dakota), next to Wild Bill Hickock.


Autobiography

"Calamity Jane", as she would become known, lived a very colorful and eventful life but often claimed questionable associations or friendships with notable famous American Old West figures, almost always posthumously. For example, years after the death of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer, she claimed that she served under him during her initial enlistment at Fort Russell, and that she also served under him during the Indian Campaigns in Arizona. However, no records exist to show that Cannary was assigned to Fort Russell, and she did not take an active part in the Arizona Indian Campaigns; she was tasked with subjugating the Plains Indians.


Major media appearances

Calamity Jane was an important character in the Deadwood Dick series of dime novels beginning with the first appearance of Deadwood Dick in Beadle's half Dime Library issue #1 in 1877. This series, written by Edward Wheeler, established her with a reputation as a wild north vacation heroine and probably did more to enhance her familiarity to the public than any of her real life exploits.
Calamity Jane was a 1953 musical film starring Doris Day.
Jane is a central character in Pete Dexter's 1986 novel Deadwood, ISBN 1400079713.
J.T. Edson features Calamity Jane as a character in a number of his books, as a stand alone character and also as a romantic interest of the character Mark Counter.
Calamity Jane also figures as a main character in an album of the same name of the Franco-Belgian comics series Lucky Luke, created by Morris.
Jane is the central character in Larry McMurtry's book Buffalo Girls.
Jane is also a central character in HBO's series Deadwood, portrayed by Robin Weigert.
The Plainsman is a 1936 film starring Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok and Jean Arthur as Calamity Jane.
Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickock are featured in the song "Deadwood Mountain" by the country duo Big & Rich.
In 1997 a cartoon series on Kids' WB called The Legend of Calamity Jane depicted a young Jane.
In the 1995 movie Tall Tale she was portrayed by actress Catherine O'Hara as Pecos Bill's love and as a sheriff or deputy of somesort.
In the 1963 episode of Bonanza , "Calamity Over the Comstock", Stefanie Powers plays Calamity Jane, who visits Virginia City along with Doc Holliday.

Kate Smith
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Kathryn Elizabeth Smith
Born May 1, 1907(1907-05-01)
Greenville, Virginia
Died June 17, 1986 (aged 79)
Raleigh, North Carolina
Occupation(s) Singer

Kathryn Elizabeth "Kate" Smith (May 1, 1907 - June 17, 1986) was an American singer, best known for her rendition of Irving Berlin's "God Bless America". Smith had a long career in show business, with a radio, TV and recording career that spanned five decades, reaching its most-remembered zenith in the 1940s.

Her musical career began in earnest when she was discovered in 1930 by Columbia Records vice president Ted Collins, who became her longtime partner and manager and who put her on the radio in 1931. She sang the controversial top twenty song of 1931, "That's Why Darkies Were Born". She starred in the 1932 movie Hello Everybody!, with co-stars Randolph Scott and Sally Blane, and in 1943 she sang "God Bless America" in the wartime picture This is the Army. Irving Berlin had written the song in 1918, and it is considered "the second National Anthem" of the United States. Its popularity and constant airplay led Woody Guthrie to pen the original version of "This Land Is Your Land" in protest at the Berlin tune's unquestioning complacency.

Kate began making records in 1926; among her biggest hits were "River, Stay 'Way From My Door" (1931), "The Woodpecker Song" (1940), "The White Cliffs of Dover" (1941), "Rose O'Day" (1941), "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" (1942), "There Goes That Song Again" (1944), "Seems Like Old Times" (1946), and "Now Is the Hour" (1947). Her theme song was "When the Moon Comes Over the Mountain", the lyrics of which she helped write. She greeted audiences with "Hello, everybody!" and signed off with "Thanks for listenin'." She made advertising endorsements for Esquire in 1951.





Radio

Her oversized figure made her an occasional object of derision from fellow performers and managers; however, in her later career, some Philadelphia Flyers hockey fans (see Kate Smith statue below) lovingly said about her performances before games, "it ain't BEGUN 'til the fat lady sings!" Smith, who weighed 235 pounds at the age of 30[1] was unfazed, and titled her 1938 autobiography Living in a Great Big Way. She credited Ted Collins, who also gave her the break into the radio business, with helping her overcome her self-consciousness, writing, "Ted Collins was the first man who regarded me as a singer, and didn't even seem to notice that I was a big girl,"[2] She noted, "I'm big, and I sing, and boy, when I sing, I sing all over!"[3]

Smith was a major star of radio, usually backed by Jack Miller's Orchestra. She began in 1931 with her twice-a-week NBC series, Kate Smith Sings (which quickly expanded to six shows a week), followed by a series of shows for CBS: Kate Smith and Her Swanee Music (1931-33), sponsored by La Palina Cigars; The Kate Smith Matinee (1934-35); The Kate Smith New Star Revue (1934-35); Kate Smith's Coffee Time (1935-36), sponsored by A&P; and The Kate Smith A&P Bandwagon (1936-37).

For eight years (1937-45), The Kate Smith Hour was a leading radio variety show, offering comedy, music and drama with appearances by top personalities of films and theater. The nationwide audience was introduced to comedy by the show's resident comics, Abbott and Costello and Henny Youngman, while a series of sketches led to The Aldrich Family as a spin-off in 1940. She continued into the 1950s on the Mutual Broadcasting System, CBS, ABC, and NBC, doing both music and talk shows.


Kate Smith statue

On October 8, 1987, the Kate Smith statue was dedicated outside the Spectrum in Philadelphia prior to the Flyers game vs. the Montreal Canadiens.An unusual part of her career began on December 11, 1969, when the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team played her rendition of "God Bless America" before the game. Philadelphia beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 6-3. The team would begin to play the song before home games every once in a while, and the perception developed that the team was more successful on these occasions, so the tradition grew.

On October 11, 1973, she made a surprise appearance at the Flyers' home opener to perform the song in person prior to another game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, and received a tremendous reception. The Flyers won that game by a 2-0 score.

She again performed the song at the Spectrum in front of a capacity crowd of 17,007 excited fans before Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals on May 19, 1974, at which the Flyers clinched their first of two back-to-back Stanley Cups, winning that playoff series against the Boston Bruins 4 games to 2, with Bernie Parent shutting the Bruins out 1-0 in that game.

Smith also performed live at these Flyers home games: May 13, 1975, where the Flyers beat the New York Islanders by a score of 4-1 to win Game 7 of the Stanley Cup semi-finals, and on May 16, 1976, before Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals where the Flyers lost to the Montreal Canadiens by a score of 5-3 and were swept by the Canadiens in that series.

The Flyers' record when "God Bless America" is played or sung in person stands at a remarkable 73 wins, 19 losses, and 4 ties.[4] Ms. Smith and her song remain a special part of Flyers' history. In 1987, the team erected a statue of Smith outside their arena at the time, the Spectrum, in her memory. The Flyers will still show a video of her singing "God Bless America" in lieu of "The Star Spangled Banner" for good luck before important games, most recently before their playoff victory over the Montreal Canadiens on April 28, 2008. Often, the video of her performance is accompanied by Lauren Hart, daughter of the late Hockey Hall of Fame broadcaster, Gene Hart, longtime voice of the Flyers.

In 1982, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Ronald Reagan.

Her rendition of "God Bless America" is also played during the 7th inning stretch of most New York Yankees home games.

Proceeds or money from her performances of "God Bless America" are donated to the Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts.


Death

Kate Smith, who never married, died of diabetes in 1986 at age 79 in Raleigh, North Carolina, several years after converting to Roman Catholicism. She is interred in a private mausoleum at Saint Agnes Cemetery in Lake Placid, Essex County, New York. In 1999, she was posthumously inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

Glenn Ford
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford
May 1, 1916(1916-05-01)
Quebec City, Quebec, Canada[1]
Died August 30, 2006 (aged 90)
Beverly Hills, Los Angeles County, California, U.S.
Years active 1930s-1990s
Spouse(s) Eleanor Powell (1943-1959)
Kathryn Hays (1966-1969)
Cynthia Hayward (1974-1977)
Jeanne Baus (1993-1994)
Official website
Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy
1962 Pocketful of Miracles

Gwyllyn Samuel Newton "Glenn" Ford (May 1, 1916 - August 30, 2006) was an acclaimed Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades. Ford was a versatile actor best known for playing either cowboys or ordinary men in unusual circumstances.





Early life and career

He was born at Jeffrey Hale Hospital in Quebec City, Quebec,[2] to Anglo-Quebecer parents Hannah and Newton Ford, who was a railroad executive.[3] He was a great-nephew of Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald.[4] Ford moved to Santa Monica, California with his family at the age of eight, and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939.

After Ford graduated from Santa Monica High School, he began working in small theatre groups. Ford later commented that his railroad executive father had no objection to his growing interest in acting, but told him, "Its all right for you to try to act, if you learn something else first. Be able to take a car apart and put it together. Be able to build a house, every bit of it. Then you'll always have something."[5] Ford heeded the advice and during the 1950s, when he was one of Hollywood's most popular actors, he regularly worked on plumbing, wiring and air conditioning at home.[5] At times, he worked as a roofer and installer of plate-glass windows.

He acted in west coast stage companies, before joining Columbia Pictures in 1939. His stage name came from his father's hometown of Glenford, Canada.[6] His first major movie part was in the 1939 film Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence.


Military service

In 1942, Ford's film career was interrupted when he volunteered for duty in World War II with the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve on 13 December as a photographic specialist at the rank of Sergeant. He was assigned in March 1943 to active duty at the Marine Corps Base in San Diego. He was sent to Marine Corps Schools Detachment (Photographic Section) in Quantico, Virginia, that June, with orders as a motion-picture production technician. Sergeant Ford returned to the San Diego base in February 1944 and was assigned next to the radio section of the Public Relations Office, Headquarters Company, Base Headquarters Battalion. There he staged and broadcast the radio program Halls of Montezuma. Glenn Ford was honorably discharged from the Marines on 7 December 1944.

In 1958, he joined the U.S. Naval Reserve and was commissioned as a lieutenant commander with a 1655 designator (public affairs officer). During his annual training tours, he promoted the Navy through radio and television broadcasts, personal appearances, and documentary films. He was promoted to commander in 1963 and captain in 1968.

Ford went to Vietnam in 1967 for a month's tour of duty as a location scout for combat scenes in a training film entitled Global Marine. He traveled with a combat camera crew from the demilitarized zone south to the Mekong Delta. For his service in Vietnam, the Navy awarded him a Navy Commendation Medal. His World War II decorations are as follows: American Campaign Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, World War II Victory Medal, Rifle Marksman Badge, and the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Medal. He retired from the Naval Reserve in the 1970s at the rank of captain.[7]


Acting career

Following military service, Ford's breakthrough role was in 1946, starring alongside Rita Hayworth in Gilda. He went on to be a leading man opposite her in a total of five films. While the movie is mostly remembered as the vehicle for Hayworth's "provocative rendition of a song called Put the Blame on Mame," The New York Times movie reviewer Bosley Crowther praised Ford's "stamina and poise in a thankless role" despite the movie's poor direction.[5]

Ford's career flourished in the 1950s and into the 1960s, and continued into the early 1990s, with an increasing number of television roles. His major roles in thrillers, dramas and action films include A Stolen Life with Bette Davis, The Secret of Convict Lake with Gene Tierney, The Big Heat, Framed, Blackboard Jungle, Interrupted Melody with Eleanor Parker, Experiment in Terror with Lee Remick, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, Ransom!, Superman and westerns such as The Fastest Gun Alive, 3:10 to Yuma and Cimarron. Ford's versatility also allowed him to star in a number of popular comedies, including The Teahouse of the August Moon, Don't Go Near the Water, The Gazebo, Cry For Happy, and The Courtship of Eddie's Father.

In 1971, Ford signed with CBS to star in his first television series, a half hour comedy/drama titled The Glenn Ford Show. However, CBS head Fred Silverman noticed that many of the featured films being shown at a Glenn Ford film festival were westerns. He suggested doing a western series instead, which resulted in the "modern day western" series, Cade's County. Ford played southwestern Sheriff Cade for one season (1971-1972) in a mix of western drama and police mystery. In The Family Holvak (1975-1976), Ford portrayed a depression era preacher in a family drama, reprising the same character he had played in the TV film The Greatest Gift. Julie Harris co-starred as his wife and Lance Kerwin as his son.

In 1978, Ford had a supporting role in Superman, as Clark Kent's adopted father, Jonathan Kent, a role that introduced Ford to a new generation of film audiences. Ford's final scene in the film begins with a direct reference to Blackboard Jungle - the earlier film's theme song "Rock Around the Clock" is heard on a car radio.

In 1991, Ford agreed to star in a cable network series, African Skies. However, prior to the start of the series, he developed blood clots in his legs which required a lengthy stay in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Eventually he recovered, but at one time his situation was so severe that he was listed in critical condition. Ford was forced to drop out of the series and was replaced by Robert Mitchum.

In the 2006 movie Superman Returns, there is a scene where Ma Kent (played by Eva Marie Saint) stands next to the living room mantel after Superman returns from his quest to find remnants of Krypton. On that mantel is a picture of Pa Kent (as played by Glenn Ford). This "cameo" of sorts was Ford's last screen appearance (the photograph is more easily visible in a deleted scene included with the DVD release of the film).


Personal life

Ford's first wife was actress Eleanor Powell (1943-1959), with whom he had his only child, Peter (born 1945). The couple appeared together on screen once, in a short subject produced in the 1950s entitled The Faith of Our Children. Ford subsequently married actress Kathryn Hays (1966-1969); Cynthia Hayward (1977-1984); and Jeanne Baus (1993-1994). All four marriages ended in divorce. Ford was not on good terms with his ex-wives. He also had a long-term relationship with actress Hope Lange,[citation needed] although they never married.

In 1978, Ford underwent hypnosis at his home in Beverly Hills, and recalled a past life of being a Colorado cowboy named Charlie Bill.[citation needed] He gave a detailed description of a past-life, which was tape-recorded for academics at the University of California to study. A second experiment was conducted[citation needed] at the university itself when Ford, then 61, responded well to the hypnosis. This time he did not recall the life of Charlie Bill, but that of a Scottish piano teacher named Charles Stuart. "I teach the piano to young flibbertigibbets", said Ford under the hypnosis, using a quaint old English word for rascals not in common use in California. He allegedly played a few notes on piano during the experiment, despite later telling that he never had been taught to play the instrument. The researchers then managed to locate the grave of a Charles Stuart in Elgin, Scotland, who died in 1840. After being shown a photo of the burial place, Ford said "That shook me up real bad. I felt immediately that it was the place I was buried."

For the first half of his life, Glenn Ford supported the US Democratic Party - in the 1950s he supported Adlai Stevenson for President - and in later years became a supporter of the Republican Party, campaigning for his friend Ronald Reagan in the 1980 and 1984 presidential elections.

Ford offered to buy the National Hockey League's Atlanta Flames for $8 million in 1980 in order to keep the team in Atlanta, but was outbid by Canadian Nelson Skalbania, who moved the team to Calgary, Alberta, where they became the Calgary Flames.

Ford's son Peter also became an actor (as well as a singer and radio host), before giving up on his acting career around 1975; he later became a successful business contractor. Ford was reportedly furious when he learned that Peter had briefly taken control of his estate in 1992, when he was seriously ill and had gone into a coma while in the hospital. Ford became estranged from his son and stated that he would leave his estate to Pauli Kiernan, his 39-year-old nurse and companion. While Peter contended Ms. Kiernan was manipulating his father, the elder Ford said, "What Peter has done to me is cruel and wicked. He just wants my money. I want my nurse Pauli to get the money. I know who's been good and kind to me in these last years of my life."[5] Several years later, however, Glenn Ford reconciled with his son Peter, who subsequently moved into Ford's Beverly Hills mansion along with the latter's wife Lynda and their three children.[5] They maintained a close relationship; Peter is currently writing a biography about his father.

Ford suffered a series of minor strokes which left him in frail health in the years leading up to his death.


Awards

After being nominated in 1957 and 1958, in 1962 Glenn Ford won a Golden Globe Award as Best Actor for his performance in Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles. He was listed in Quigley's Annual List of Top Ten Boxoffice Champions in 1956, 1958 and 1959, topping the list at number one in 1958. For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Glenn Ford has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6933 Hollywood Blvd. In 1978, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 1987 he received the Donostia Award in the San Sebastian International Film Festival, and in 1992 he was awarded the Légion d'honneur medal for his actions in the Second World War.

Ford was scheduled to make his first public appearance in 15 years at a 90th birthday tribute gala in his honor[8] hosted by the American Cinematheque at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on May 1, 2006, but at the last minute, he had to bow out. Anticipating that his health might prevent his attendance, Ford had the previous week recorded a special filmed message for the audience, which was screened after a series of in-person tributes from friends including Martin Landau, Shirley Jones, Jamie Farr, and Debbie Reynolds.[9]

Jack Paar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born May 1, 1918(1918-05-01)
Canton, Ohio, USA
Died January 27, 2004 (aged 85)
Greenwich, Connecticut, USA

Jack Harold Paar (May 1, 1918 - January 27, 2004) was an American radio and television talk show host most noted for his iconic status as host of The Tonight Show.





Biography

Radio and motion pictures

Born in Canton, Ohio, he moved, along with his family, to Jackson, Michigan, approximately 30 miles south of Lansing, Michigan, during his childhood. Leaving school at 16, he first worked as a radio announcer at WIBM in Jackson, Michigan and later a humorous disc jockey at stations throughout the Midwest including WJR in Detroit, WIRE in Indianapolis, WGAR in Cleveland and WBEN in Buffalo. In his book P.S. Jack Paar, he recalled doing utility duty at WGAR on the night Orson Welles broadcast his infamous War of the Worlds over the CBS network (and affiliate WGAR). Attempting to calm possible panicked listeners, Paar announced, "The world is not coming to an end. Trust me. Have I ever lied to you?"

During World War II, as part of a special services company entertaining troops in the South Pacific, Paar was a clever, wisecracking master of ceremonies. More than once, his pointed jibes at officers nearly got him into trouble. Paar became renowned among servicemen, who thought he was even better than professional comedians.

Jack Paar came to the attention of RKO Radio Pictures in Hollywood, which hired him to emcee Variety Time (1948), a compilation of vaudeville sketches. Paar later recalled that RKO didn't know what to do with him. His producers, trying to decide what kind of screen characters he could play, compared Paar with other RKO stars. Finally, Paar said, one of the executives had an inspiration, and figured out who Jack Paar really was: "Kay Kyser, with warmth." Paar projected a pleasant personality on film, and RKO called him back to emcee another filmed vaudeville show, Footlight Varieties (1951). Paar was featured in a few films, including a role opposite Marilyn Monroe in Love Nest (1951).

Like fellow humorists Steve Allen and Henry Morgan, Jack Paar dabbled in motion pictures but was much more comfortable behind a studio microphone, broadcasting. Paar found loyal listeners nationally as the 1950-51 host of radio's The $64 Question on NBC. He appeared as a standup comic on The Ed Sullivan Show and hosted two TV game shows, Up To Paar (1952) and Bank On The Stars (1953), before hosting The Morning Show (1954) on CBS. In 1956 he hosted The Jack Paar Show on the ABC Radio network.


The Tonight Show

An impressive stint as a guest host on Jack Benny's radio show caught the attention of NBC officials, who eventually offered him his best known role as host of The Tonight Show. Paar was the program's host from 1957 to 1962; after 1959 it was known as The Jack Paar Show. It became, on September 19, 1960, one of the first regularly scheduled videotaped programs in color. Sadly, only a few minutes of video of Paar's talk host career in color are known to exist today; NBC's policy at the time was to preserve programming on black-and-white kinescopes.

It was during Paar's stint as host that The Tonight Show became the entertainment juggernaut that it remained for the next five decades. No other host generated the degree of obsessive fascination in the press or the public that Paar did, partly because his version of the television talk show was so amazingly unpredictable, with memorable occurrences like a slurring drunk Judy Garland talking about her rival Marlene Dietrich playing only the applause sections of a recording of Dietrich's recent European concerts while at a party that they both happened to attend. Both John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared separately on the show when they were running against each other for president in 1960, and Robert F. Kennedy later granted Paar the first interview after his brother's assassination.

The Tonight focus was always on compelling conversation and Paar's guests tended to be literate raconteurs such as Peter Ustinov rather than actors selling their current films, while Paar himself was a superb storyteller. Further, Paar surrounded himself with a memorable group of regulars and semi-regulars, including Cliff Arquette (as the homespun "Charlie Weaver"), author-illustrator Alexander King, Tedi Thurman (NBC's sultry "Miss Monitor") and comedy actresses Peggy Cass and Dody Goodman. In 1959, Paar's gagwriter Jack Douglas became a bestselling author (My Brother Was an Only Child, A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Grave: An Autobiography) after his regular appearances with Paar. Douglas's pretty Japanese wife Reiko often appeared, as did Hungarian sexpot Zsa Zsa Gabor, French comedienne Genevieve and several Brits as well; Paar enjoyed conversing with foreigners and knew their accents would spice up the proceedings.

During this time, Paar also made occasional appearances on the television game shows Password and What's My Line? On episode 215 of the latter, Paar filled in as guest panelist for Steve Allen, his predecessor at The Tonight Show.


Controversy

In 1959, he was criticized for his interview with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Later that year, during the show's regular swing through the West Coast, Paar again made the front pages of the national newspapers by asking a visibly-inebriated Mickey Rooney to leave the program during the December 1st telecast. Two years later, he broadcast his show from Berlin just as the Berlin Wall was going up. Paar also engaged in a number of public feuds, one of them with CBS luminary Ed Sullivan, and another with Walter Winchell. The latter feud "effectively ended Winchell's career" beginning a shift in power from print to television.[1]


Highly emotional

Paar was often unpredictable and emotional. The most salient example of this kind of on-screen behavior was demonstrated on the February 10, 1960 show, when one of his jokes was cut from a broadcast by studio censors. The joke in question involved a woman writing to a vacation resort and inquiring about the availability of a "W.C." The woman used that term to mean "water closet" (i.e., bathroom), but the gentleman who received the letter misunderstood "W.C." to mean "wayside chapel" (i.e., church). The full text of the joke[2] reveals multiple double entendres that are tame by today's standards, but too much for the network to bear in 1960. NBC censors replaced that section of the show with news coverage and failed to inform Paar of their decision.

The decision to censor the joke so angered Paar that the next night, February 11, he announced on the air that he was leaving the show, saying "I've made a decision about what I'm going to do. I'm leaving The Tonight Show. There must be a better way to make a living than this, a way of entertaining people without being constantly involved in some form of controversy. I love NBC [...] But they let me down."[2]After finishing this monologue, Paar abruptly walked offstage, leaving his flustered announcer Hugh Downs to finish the show for him.

Less than a month later, Paar was convinced to return; on March 7 he opened his monologue with the now-famous line, "As I was saying before I was interrupted...I believe the last thing I said was 'There must be a better way to make a living than this.' Well, I've looked...and there isn't." He then went on to explain his departure with typical frankness: "Leaving the show was a childish and perhaps emotional thing. I have been guilty of such action in the past and will perhaps be again. I'm totally unable to hide what I feel. It is not an asset in show business, but I shall do the best I can to amuse and entertain you and let other people speak freely, as I have in the past."[2]


The Move to Prime Time

Paar's emotionality made the everyday routine of putting together a 90-minute program difficult to continue for long. Paar made it clear that he was not planning to continue with The Tonight Show because, as a TV Guide item put it, he was "bone tired" of the grind, and he signed off for the last time on March 29, 1962.

Paar then began hosting a prime-time Friday night show on NBC, entitled The Jack Paar Program. Popular belief holds that The Ed Sullivan Show introduced the Beatles to American television audiences; In fact, on January 3, 1964 the group made their prime time debut on Paar's hour in film clips Paar had leased from the BBC, with Paar gently making fun of the band (the Beatles first U.S. television appearance was in a feature story on The Huntley-Brinkley Report on November 18, 1963). Paar's show had a world view, debuting acts from around the globe and showing films from exotic locations; most of the films were made on travels made by guests such as Arthur Godfrey or Paar himself (e.g., several visits with Albert Schweitzer at his compound in Gabon, West Africa and Mary Martin at her home in the jungles of Brazil). During the first half of 1964, another running feud pitted Paar against the show immediately preceding his program, David Frost's satire series That Was The Week That Was. A typical exchange would have That Was the Week That Was "signing off" the NBC Television Network just before the Paar program, with Paar responding that the show immediately preceding his was Henry Morgan's Amateur Hour (Morgan was a frequent guest on the earlier show). The mock feud suddenly evaporated when NBC moved That Was the Week That Was to a Tuesday night time slot for the 1964-65 season.

Paar's prime time show aired for three years, including guests such as Brother Dave Gardner, Peter Ustinov, Lawrence of Arabia's brother, Richard Burton, Oscar Levant, Lowell Thomas, Cassius Clay reciting his poetry to piano accompaniment by Liberace, an occasionally inebriated Judy Garland, Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby (whose nickname for Paar was "The Boss"), Bette Davis, Robert Morley, Dick Gregory and many others. The final closing segment of the series, broadcast on June 25, 1965, featured him sitting alone on a stool, sharing a discussion that he had with his daughter Randy, who called Paar's departure a sabbatical. Noting the origins of the term, he said that his own field was, though not completely used up, "a little dry recently." Then he called to his German shepherd, who came to him from the seats of what was, for once, an empty studio, and walked out. Johnny Carson precisely copied this format of hosting a clip show from a stool for his own farewell episode of The Tonight Show in 1992.


Later career

Paar came back for another late-night show in January 1973 on ABC; this time, as one of a group of rotating hosts (including Dick Cavett, a former Paar writer) on ABC's Wide World of Entertainment, he appeared one week out of each month, which was the most Paar was willing to appear. (Paar later claimed he would not have appeared at all unless ABC committed itself to keeping Cavett's show on the schedule in some manner.) His announcer for this series was Peggy Cass, and perhaps the most notable aspect of the series was the fact that comic Freddie Prinze made his national television debut on it. He later expressed discomfort with what the medium had developed into. While Cavett had no problem interviewing young rock acts, Paar once expressed the view he had trouble interviewing people dressed in "overalls." The show, which was in direct competition with Tonight, lasted one year before he quit. Dissatisfied with the one-week-per-month formula, he complained that even his own mother didn't know when he was on.

In 1986, NBC aired a special featuring Paar, titled Jack Paar Comes Home; the following year, a second special Jack Paar Is Alive and Well was broadcast by the network. Both of these specials were largely made up of kinescoped clips from Paar's prime time program, to which he maintained the copyright. In the course of promoting the first special, Paar guested on Johnny Carson's version of Tonight for the first time on November 18, 1986. He appeared again to promote the next one on December 17, 1987.


Smart Television

PBS television devoted an edition of the prestigious American Masters series to Paar's career in 1997, and in 2003 revisited the topic with another hour-long examination of the Paar phenomenon, appropriately entitled Smart Television. The program features clips of Paar with guests including Jonathan Winters, Woody Allen, Judy Garland, Bill Cosby (in his first network appearance), Peter Ustinov, Richard Burton, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy (in his first interview after his brother's assassination), Richard Nixon, Barry Goldwater, and many others compiled from the 1950s and 1960s, as well as more recent interviews with people who worked with Paar.


Death

Paar, who enjoyed many years of relatively good health and made rare guest appearances on The Tonight Show (hosted by Johnny Carson and Jay Leno) and Late Night with David Letterman, as well as Charles Grodin's CNBC talk show, died at his Greenwich, Connecticut home in January 2004 at age 85, with his wife and daughter by his side. He had long been ill, having undergone triple-bypass heart surgery in 1998 and a stroke one year before he died.

As Richard Corliss noted in Time's obituary, Jack Paar had divided television talk show history into two eras: Before Paar and Below Paar.

Sonny James
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name James Loden
Born May 1, 1929 (1929-05-01) (age 79)
Origin Hackleburg, Alabama
Genre(s) country music
Occupation(s) country singer/songwriter
Years active 1953-1983
Label(s) Capitol Records

Sonny James (born James Loden on May 1, 1929 in Hackleburg, Alabama) is an American country music singer and songwriter. In 2006, James was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame.





Rise to Fame

Sonny James (Loden) was born on a farm into a family of musicians. By age three he was playing a mandolin and singing. At age four he joined with his "Mom" & "Pop" and nine-year-old sister Thelma "Sis" to perform on an area radio station. Ruby Palmer also joined the group and the singing Sonny Boy & The Loden family's popularity was such that before long they were playing theaters, auditoriums and schoolhouses throughout the southern United States. After years on the road, the two girls married and the family band dissolved in 1947.

In 1950, Sonny James joined a country group in Memphis, Tennessee, but his desire for a full-time career in music was interrupted by service in the Korean War. After nearly eighteen months overseas, he was shipped home and discharged in the late fall of 1952. James later headed for Nashville, Tennessee where, with the help of Chet Atkins, whom James had roomed with, he signed with Capitol Records. The company had him drop his last name of Loden, and as "Sonny James" he made his first studio record. While appearing on a popular radio show, the Louisiana Hayride, he met musician Slim Whitman. James's performance on stage playing a fiddle and singing brought a strong crowd response and Whitman invited him to front for his new touring band. James stayed with Whitman's group for a few months before returning to Nashville to make further recordings including what became his first Top Ten country hit, That's Me Without You. Over the next few years, he had several songs that did reasonably well on the country music charts and he continued to develop his career with performances at live country music shows. He also did well on radio and then on the all-important new medium, television, where he appeared on the Ozark Jubilee and Ed Sullivan shows.


Height of His Career

Dubbed the "Southern Gentleman" because of his polite demeanor, Sonny James recorded "Young Love", a 45 rpm single for which he would forever be remembered. That was in 1957. As the first-ever teenage country "crossover" single, it topped both the country and pop music charts. He gained more exposure with a television appearances on the very important Ed Sullivan Show. After leaving Capitol Records for the 1st time in 1959, Sonny James signed with National Recording Corporation. His career also included stints with Dot (1960-1961), RCA (1961-1962), his second stint with Capitol (1963-1972), Columbia (1972-1979), Monument (1979), and Dimension (1981-1983).

Sonny James went on to a long and highly successful career and in 1962 he became a member of the Grand Ole Opry. From 1964 to 1972, Sonny James was a dominant force in country music. Beginning in 1967 with "I'll Never Find Another You" and ending with "Here Comes Honey Again" in 1971, Sonny James recorded 16 straight #1 singles in addition to 72 verified chart hits. James's career No. 1 total would eventually stand at 23, the last coming with 1974's "Is It Wrong (For Loving You)."

The No. 1 streak record is a point of contention among historians. Country supergroup Alabama reportedly surpassed James's record in 1985 with their 17th No. 1 song, "Forty Hour Week (For a Livin')," but the dispute stems from a 1982 Christmas single, "Christmas in Dixie." The Christmas song peaked at No. 35 on the Billboard magazine Hot Country Singles chart in January 1983, in the middle of what is widely considered to be a streak of 21 No. 1 songs. Some sources, including the Alabama Music Hall of Fame web site, state that the failure of "Christmas in Dixie" snapped Alabama's streak before it could achieve parity with James's; others, such as Joel Whitburn's "Top Country Songs: 1944-2005", disregard non-No. 1 Christmas singles (such as "Christmas in Dixie") in determining chart-topping streaks and consider Alabama to have surpassed the record.

James was a guest performer on popular television shows, such as the Bob Hope Show, the Ed Sullivan Show and Hee Haw. He also made minor appearances in several Hollywood motion pictures and in 1969, Billboard magazine named him "Artist of the Year."


Settling Down

In 1983, James retired to his home and wife Doris in Nashville, Tennessee.

For his contribution to the music industry, James has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 2006, James was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, and also appeared on TV for the first time in nearly 20 years, to accept his induction on the Country Music Association Awards, on November 6, 2006.

Joan Hackett
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Born Joan Ann Hackett
March 1, 1934(1934-03-01)
East Harlem, New York City, New York, U.S.
Died October 8, 1983 (aged 49)
Encino, California, U.S.
Spouse(s) Richard Mulligan
(1967-1973)
Awards won
Golden Globe Awards
Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
1982 Only When I Laugh

Joan Hackett (March 1, 1934 - October 8, 1983) was an American actress who appeared on stage, in films, and on television.

Born in New York City of Irish and Italian extraction, her immigrant parents raised her Roman Catholic and sent her to Catholic schools.

Hackett debuted with the role of Gail Prentiss in the TV series Young Doctor Malone in 1959. She had a leading role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Piano in the House" (1962). She had one of the starring roles in the 1966 Sidney Lumet film The Group along with Candice Bergen, Larry Hagman, Richard Mulligan, Joanna Pettet, and others.

One of her notable performances was the role of Catherine Allen in the 1968 Western Will Penny, with Charlton Heston. Hackett also had notable parts in the classic Western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), with James Garner, and the 1973 murder mystery The Last of Sheila. After this she primarily had parts in TV movies and on episodes of TV series.

Hackett won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1981 movie Only When I Laugh, the last movie she made before her death. She could also be seen in Paul Simon's film One Trick Pony, in which she did a nude scene.

From 1965 to 1973 she was married to the actor Richard Mulligan, who also appeared in The Group.

Hackett died of ovarian cancer at Encino Hospital in California in 1983 at the age of 49. Both of her parents had also died of cancer. She is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where her epitaph reads: "Go Away. I'm sleeping."

Judy Collins
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Judith Marjorie Collins
Born May 1, 1939 (1939-05-01) (age 69)
Origin Seattle, Washington, USA
Occupation(s) Singer
Voice type(s) Soprano
Years active 1960 - present
Website judycollins.com

Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939 in Seattle, Washington) is an American folk and standards singer and songwriter, known for the stunning purity of her soprano; for her eclectic tastes in the material she records (which has included folk, showtunes, pop, and rock and roll); and for her social activism.





Biography

As a child Collins studied classical piano with Antonia Brico, making her public debut at age 13, performing Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos. She had the fortune of meeting many musicians through her father, a remarkable man who, despite being blind, was a Seattle radio disc jockey.

However, it was the music of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and the traditional songs of the folk revival of the early 1960s, that piqued Collins' interest and awoke in her a love of lyrics. Three years after her debut as a piano prodigy, she was playing guitar. Her music became popular at the University of Connecticut where her husband taught. She performed at parties and for the campus radio station along with David Grisman and Tom Azarian [1][2]. She eventually made her way to Greenwich Village, New York City, where she busked and played in clubs until she signed with Elektra Records, a record label with which she was associated for 35 years. In 1961, Collins released her first album, A Maid of Constant Sorrow, at the age of 22.

At first, she sang traditional folk songs, or songs written by others, in particular the social poets of the time, such as Tom Paxton, Phil Ochs, and Bob Dylan. She recorded her own versions of seminal songs of the period, such as Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" and Pete Seeger's "Turn, Turn, Turn". Collins was also instrumental in bringing little known musicians to a wider public (in much the same way Joan Baez brought Bob Dylan into the public eye). For example, Collins recorded songs by Canadian poet Leonard Cohen, who would become a close friend over the years. She would also go on to record songs by singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Randy Newman, and Richard Farina, long before they gained the national acclaim they would later achieve.

While Collins' first few albums comprised straightforward guitar-based folk songs, with 1966's In My Life, she began branching out and including work from such diverse sources as The Beatles, Cohen, Jacques Brel and Kurt Weill. Mark Abramson produced and Joshua Rifkin arranged the album, adding lush orchestration to many of the numbers. The album was regarded as a major departure for a folk artist, and set the course for Collins' subsequent work over the next decade.

With her 1967 album Wildflowers, also produced by Mark Abramson and arranged by Rifkin, Collins began to record her own compositions, the first of which was entitled "Since You've Asked". The album also provided Collins with a major hit, and a Grammy award, in Mitchell's "Both Sides Now", which reached #8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Collins' 1968 album, Who Knows Where the Time Goes, was produced by David Anderle and featured back-up guitar by Stephen Stills (of Crosby, Stills & Nash), with whom she was romantically involved at the time. (She was the inspiration for two notable songs by Stills: the Buffalo Springfield's haunting "Bluebird", and the CSN classic, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"). Time Goes had a mellow country sound, and included Ian Tyson's "Someday Soon" and the title track, a Sandy Denny song which has since been covered by several artists. The album also featured Collins' composition, "My Father," and one of the first covers of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire."

By the 1970s, Collins had a solid reputation as an art song singer and folksinger, and had begun to stand out for her own compositions. She was also known for her broad range of material: her songs from this period include the traditional Christian hymn "Amazing Grace", the Stephen Sondheim Broadway ballad "Send in the Clowns" (both of which were top 20 hits as singles), a recording of Joan Baez' "A Song For David," and her own compositions, such as "Born to the Breed".

In 1976, Collins posed nude for the album "Hard Times For Lovers".

Collins later admitted suffering from the eating disorder bulimia after she quit smoking in the 1970s. "I went straight from the cigarettes into an eating disorder," she told People Magazine in 1992. "I started throwing up. I didn't know anything about bulimia, certainly not that it is an addiction or that it would get worse. My feelings about myself, even though I had been able to give up smoking and lose 20 lbs., were of increasing despair."

In more recent years Collins has taken to writing, producing a memoir, "Trust Your Heart" in 1987, as well as a novel, "Shameless". A more recent memoir, "Sanity and Grace" tells the story of her son, Clark, and his death from suicide in January 1992. Though her record sales are not what they once were, she still records and tours in the U.S., Europe, Australia and New Zealand. She performed at US President Bill Clinton's first inauguration in 1993, singing "Amazing Grace" and "Chelsea Morning". (The Clintons have stated that their daughter Chelsea was named after Collins' recording of the song.)


Activism

Like many other folk singers of her generation, Collins was drawn to social activism. She is a representative for UNICEF and campaigns on behalf of the abolition of landmines. Following the 1992 death of her son, Clark Taylor, at age 33, after a long bout with depression and substance abuse, she has also become a strong advocate of suicide prevention. Her 2003 book, Sanity & Grace, chronicles her recovery from her son's suicide and attempts to provide some comfort and guidance to other families dealing with the loss of a loved one to suicide. She describes the "Seven T's" as a means for going through this process of recovery: Truth, Therapy, Trust, Try, Treat, Treasure, and Thrive. The Truth is that there should be no guilt in suicide; Therapy helps people express their emotions and seek grief counseling; Trust is the effort to believe that one can make it through the loss and keep a belief in life and in the future; Try means to stay away from drugs and alcohol or any excess--including overeating--as a means to deal with the loss and pain; Treat means to take care of the mind, body, and spirit with exercise and meditation; Treasure means to keep the memory of the moments to be treasured, and for this Collins recommends writing and keeping a journal; and Thrive means to be positive, hopeful, open to love and others, and continuing to know that you can rebuild your life on a basis of hope.


Awards and recognition

Grammy Award, Best Folk Performance or Folk Recording, "Both Sides Now", 1968
Stephen Sondheim won a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, "Send in the Clowns", in 1975, it was believed, largely on the strength of Collins' performance of the song on her album 'Judith'
Nominated with Jill Godmillow for an Academy Award for the documentary "Antonia: A Portrait of the Woman" (1975), about her classical piano instructor, conductor Antonia Brico.

Tim McGraw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Background information

Birth name Samuel Timothy McGraw
Born May 1, 1967 (1967-05-01) (age 41)
Origin Delhi, Louisiana, United States
Genre(s) Country
Occupation(s) Musician
Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar, Piano
Years active 1992-present
Label(s) Curb
Associated acts Faith Hill
The Dancehall Doctors
Taylor Swift
Website Tim McGraw official web site

Samuel Timothy "Tim" McGraw (born May 1, 1967) is an American country singer. With many of his albums and singles topping the country music charts, Tim has achieved total album sales in excess of 40 million units. He is married to country singer Faith Hill and is the son of former baseball player Tug McGraw. His trademark hit songs include "Indian Outlaw", "Don't Take the Girl", "I Like It, I Love It", "Something Like That", "It's Your Love" (featuring his wife, Faith Hill), and "Live Like You Were Dying".

As of 2006, McGraw had nine consecutive albums to debut at Number One on the Billboard albums charts; Twenty-six singles to hit number 1 on the Billboard Hot Country 100 chart; three singles named the #1 country song of the year; ("It's Your Love", "Just To See You Smile", and "Live Like You Were Dying") Won 3 Grammys, 11 Academy of Country Music awards, 10 Country Music Association (CMA) awards, 9 American Music Awards and 3 People's Choice Awards. Ranked as one of the top five in all genres of music, his Soul2Soul II tour with Faith Hill in 2006 became the highest-grossing tour in country music history.[1]

McGraw has ventured into acting, with a supporting role in the Billy Bob Thornton film Friday Night Lights, The Kingdom, and a lead role in 2006's Flicka. He is also a minority owner of the Arena Football League's Nashville Kats.





Early life

Tim McGraw was born Samuel Timothy Smith in Delhi, Louisiana, a town in Richland Parish, the son of a waitress, Elizabeth D'Agostino Trimble, and a relief pitcher for the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies, Frank Edwin McGraw Jr. also known as Tug McGraw. McGraw is 25% Italian and 25% Irish on his mother's side and Scots-Irish descent on his father's side.[2]

Raised by his mother in Start, Louisiana east of Monroe, McGraw grew up believing his stepfather, Horace Smith, was his birth father. At age eleven McGraw discovered his birth certificate while searching his mother's closet to find pictures for a school project. After his discovery, his mother revealed that his biological father was Tug McGraw, and took Tim to meet him for the first time.[3] At first, Tug denied being Tim's father. Tim was 18 years old when Tug first realized how much Tim looked like him at that age, and the two remained close until Tug's death in 2004.

As a child, Tim McGraw loved to play competitive sports, including baseball, even though he did not know Tug McGraw was his father.[3] He studied sports medicine at Northeast Louisiana University on a baseball scholarship, and roomed with former NFL quarterback Doug Pederson[4] where he became a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity.[5] While in college he sang in a band that was known as the Electones.[citation needed] During this period, he learned to play guitar and would frequently perform and sing for tips, although he claims that his roommates often hid the guitar because he was so bad. In 1989, on the day his hero Keith Whitley died,[4] McGraw dropped out of college to head to Nashville and pursue a musical career.[3]


1990s

1990-1992

McGraw came to the attention of Curb Records in 1990. After cutting a demo single, McGraw gave a copy to his father, Tug McGraw. A man who was friends with Curb Records executives heard the demo while driving with Tug McGraw one day and recommended that Curb contact the young singer. Several weeks after he was able to play his tape for Curb executives, they signed him to a recording contract.[3] Two years later, in 1992, he had his first minor hit "Welcome to the Club" off his self-titled debut album. Although the album failed to make much of a dent on the charts, McGraw did have two other minor hits from it in 1993, "Memory Lane" and "Two Steppin Mind."[4]


1994-1995

His second album, Not a Moment Too Soon, was much more successful, becoming best selling country album in 1994. The first single, "Indian Outlaw", caused considerable controversy as critics argued that it presented Native Americans in a patronizing way.[4] Some radio stations refused to play it,[6] but the controversy helped spur sales and the song became McGraw's first top ten country single (getting as high as #8) and reaching #15 on the pop chart.[7]

The second single from the album, "Don't Take the Girl", became McGraw's first #1 country hit and "helped cement his image as a ruggedly good-looking guy with a sensitive side."[6] The following year, the album's title track became a #1 country single, while "Down on the Farm" reached number two and "Refried Dreams" reached the top 5. The album sold over 5 million copies, topping the Billboard 200 as well as the country album charts.[4] On the strength of this success, McGraw won Academy of Country Music awards for Album of the Year and Top New Male Vocalist in 1994.[8]

All I Want, released in 1995, continued his run of success, debuting at number one on the country charts. The album sold over two million copies and reached the top 5 on the Billboard 200. "I Like It, I Love It" reached number one on the country charts as the leadoff single, while "She Never Lets It Go to Her Heart" also went to number one in 1996. "Can't Really Be Gone", "All I Want is a Life", and "Maybe We Should Just Sleep On It" were all top 5 hits.[4]


1996

In 1996, McGraw headlined the most successful country tour of the year, The Spontaneous Combustion Tour, with Faith Hill as his supporting act. Faith Hill broke off her engagement to her former producer Scott Hendricks so that she and Tim could start dating each other; then married on October 6, 1996. The couple have since had three daughters, Gracie Katherine (born May 1997), Maggie Elizabeth (born August 1998) and Audrey Caroline (born December 2001).[9]


1997-1999

McGraw's next album, 1997's Everywhere, again topped the country charts and reached number two on the album charts, selling 4 million copies.[4] The first single, "It's Your Love", a duet with Faith Hill, became the first single in twenty years to spend six weeks on top of Billboard's country singles chart (the previous such song had been Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson's "Luckenbach, Texas (Back to the Basics of Love)" in 1977).[citation needed] The single reached #7 on the pop chart (and gained platinum status); and became the most played single in the history of the Billboard country charts.[citation needed] Five more singles "Everywhere", "Where the Green Grass Grows", "One of These Days", "For a Little While", and "Just to See You Smile" reached the top of the country charts from the album, with the last of these setting a new record by spending 42 weeks on the Billboard charts.[10] The Country Music Association awarded Everywhere its Album of the Year award for 1997.

A Place in the Sun in 1999 continued McGraw's streak, debuting atop both the US pop and country album charts[8] and selling three million albums. It featured another four chart topping singles on the country charts including "Please Remember Me", "Something Like That", "My Best Friend", and "My Next Thirty Years"; "Some Things Never Change" reached #7 on the country chart.[4] He also contributed a song for the Grammy-winning tribute album to Bob Willis, Ride With Bob. His song, a cover of "Milk Cow Blues", was recorded as a duet with Asleep at the Wheel, whom he had met while performing together at the George Strait Country Music Festival.[8]

McGraw recorded two more duets with his wife in the late 1990s, both of which appeared on her albums. "Just to Hear You Say That You Love Me" off her multi-platinum 1998 album Faith, reached the top five of the US country charts,[4] while her follow-up and 1999 album Breathe featured "Let's Make Love", which would win a Grammy Award in 2000 for Best Country Vocal Collaboration.[8]


2000s

2000-2001

In 2000, McGraw released his Greatest Hits album which topped the charts for nine weeks and sold almost 6 million copies, making it one of the biggest selling albums in the modern country market. In the latter half of the year, he and Hill went out on the Soul2Soul Tour, playing to sellout crowds in 64 venues including Madison Square Garden. It was one of the top tours of any genre in the US and the leading country tour during 2000.[10]

While in Buffalo, McGraw and Kenny Chesney became involved in a scuffle with police officers after Chesney, who had permission from the sheriff's daughter, attemped to ride a police horse. McGraw came to Chesney's aid after police officers nearby believed the horse was being stolen and tried to arrest him. The two were arrested and charged with assault, but were later cleared. During a concert with the George Strait Country Music Festival several weeks later, Hill, dressed as a police officer, made an unscheduled appearance at the end of McGraw's set and led him off the stage.[11]

McGraw's next album, Set This Circus Down, was released in April 2001 and spawned four number one country hits - "Grown Men Don't Cry", "Angry All the Time", "The Cowboy in Me", and "Unbroken". He also provided harmony vocals for the Jo Dee Messina song "Bring on the Rain", which he also produced. The song topped the country charts.[8]

Hungry for more of his music, fans downloaded a version of his performance of the song "Things Change" from his appearance at the Country Music Association Awards Show. The song was played extensively on radio, becoming the first country song to appear on the charts from a fully downloaded version.[10]


2002-2003

In 2002, Tim McGraw bucked country music traditions by recording his album Tim McGraw and the Dancehall Doctors with his tour band The Dancehall Doctors. Unlike rock music, where it is commonplace for touring bands to provide the music on albums recorded by the artist they support, country albums are typically recorded with session musicians.[12] McGraw chose to use his own touring band in order to recognize their part in his success and to capture some of the feel of a real band.[10]

All of the Dancehall Doctors have worked with McGraw since at least 1996. They include:

Darran Smith - Lead Guitar, Acoustic guitar
Bob Minner - Rhythm Guitar, Acoustic guitar, Banjo, Mandolin
Denny Hemingson - Steel Guitar, Electric, Baritone, and Slide Guitars, Dobro
John Marcus - Bass guitar
Dean Brown - Fiddle, Mandolin
Jeff McMahon - Piano, Organ, Synthesizer, Keyboards
Billy Mason - Drums
David Dunkley - Percussion.[10]
The album debuted at number 2 on the country albums charts,[3] with the single "Real Good Man" reaching number one on the Hot Country Songs chart. "She's My Kind of Rain" reached number 2 in 2003 and "Red Rag Top" reached the top 5. The album also featured a cover version of Elton John's early 1970s classic "Tiny Dancer", as well as appearances by Kim Carnes on "Comfort Me" - a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks - and Don Henley and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles on "Illegal".


2004-2005

2004's Live Like You Were Dying continued McGraw's record of commercial success. The title track, dedicated to his father Tug McGraw who died of brain cancer earlier in the year, was a soaring ode to living life fully and in the moment,[13] while the second single "Back When" was a paean to an easy nostalgia. 'Live Like You Were Dying' spent seven non-consecutive weeks at #1 on Billboard (10 weeks on Radio & Records) and went on to become the biggest hit single of the year. It also became one the most awarded songs/records by winning ACM Single and Song of the Year, CMA Single and Song of the Year and a Grammy.

In late 2004, his unlikely duet with hip-hop artist Nelly on " Over and Over", a soft ballad of lost love, became a crossover hit[14] spending 10 weeks atop the Top 40 chart. This made Tim the first modern country artist to have two 10 week number one hits in a single year.[citation needed] "Over and Over" brought McGraw a success he had never previously experienced on contemporary hit radio, rap radio, and brought both artists success neither had previously experienced in the hot adult contemporary market. The song also spent a week at the top of the UK single charts, and was McGraw's first visit to the UK hit countdown.

Throughout the 2005 NFL season McGraw sang an alternate version of "I Like It, I Love It" every week during the season. The alternate lyrics, which changed each week, would make reference to plays during Sunday's games and the song would be played alongside video highlights during halftime on Monday Night Football.[15] Later in the year McGraw became a minority owner of the Arena Football League's Nashville Kats when majority owner Bud Adams (owner of the NFL's Tennessee Titans) was awarded the expansion franchise.[16] It was dedicated to Tug McGraw..


2006-present

In April 2006 McGraw and Hill began their 73-concert 55 city Soul2Soul II Tour 2006, again to strong commercial acceptance. The tour grossed nearly $89 million and sold almost 1.1 million tickets, making it the top grossing tour in the history of country music.[17] It was named "Major Tour of the Year" by the prestigious Pollstar Magazine, beating out such heavyweights as Madonna and the Rolling Stones. In a special gesture, the couple donated all of the profits from their performance in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina relief.[18]

Tim, along with Kenny Chesney, contributed to a version of Tracy Lawrence's song "Find Out Who Your Friends Are", which can be found on Lawrence's album For the Love. Although the official single version features only Lawrence's vocals, many stations have opted to play the version with McGraw and Chesney instead.

McGraw released his eleventh album, Let It Go, on March 27, 2007. The album's debut single, "Last Dollar (Fly Away)", reached No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs chart, marking Tim's first No. 1 single since "Back When" in late 2004. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top 200 Album Chart and #1 on the Billboard Country Album chart, marking his 4th #1 top 200 album and 9th #1 country album (Source: Billboard Magazine).

During the Academy of Country Music awards show on May 21, 2007, McGraw performed a song titled "If You're Reading This", which he co-wrote with The Warren Brothers.[19] Several radio stations began to play the live recording of the song; as a result, it entered the Hot Country Songs chart at #35.[20]

McGraw also produced the debut album of country music duo Halfway to Hazard. The duo's first single, "Daisy", peaked at #39 on the country charts in Summer of 2007.

According to an article in the January 18, 2008 edition of the USA Today newspaper, McGraw is featured on the upcoming Def Leppard album Songs From The Sparkle Lounge and has co-written the first single, "Nine Lives", with Def Leppard band members Joe Elliott, Phil Collen and Rick Savage. The unusual pairing goes back to 2006 when McGraw joined Def Leppard onstage for the song "Pour Some Sugar On Me" and then collaborated on the song "Nine Lives" afterward. The album has a release date of May 6, 2008.

In May 2008 he will hit the road with the Live Your Voice Tour. The mainly outdoor arena concert tour will be his first solo outing in nearly three years.


[edit] Acting
McGraw's first acting appearance came in a 1995 episode of The Jeff Foxworthy Show, where he played Foxworthy's rival.

In 2004 McGraw played a sheriff in Rick Schroder's independent release Black Cloud. Later in the same year, McGraw received good notices as the overbearing father of a running back in the major studio Texas high school football drama Friday Night Lights. The Dallas Observer said the role was "played with unexpected ferocity by country singer Tim McGraw."[21] The movie went on to gross over $60 million dollars worldwide at the box office[22] and sold millions in the DVD market. Most recently it was named one of the top 50 high school movies of all time (number 37) by Entertainment Weekly.

McGraw's first lead role was in the 2006 film Flicka, which was released in theatres October 20, 2006. In the remake of the classic book "My Friend Flicka", McGraw played the father, Rob, costarring with Alison Lohman and Maria Bello. The family-friendly movie debuted in the top 10 list and has grossed over 25 Million dollars at the box office.[23] McGraw again achieved critical acclaim for his acting.[24][25]

Shortly before Flicka opened McGraw received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located at 6901 Hollywood Blvd. near stars in the sidewalk honoring Julie Andrews, William Shatner and the late Greta Garbo. One of his Flicka co-stars, Alison Lohman, attended the ceremony that included comments from Billy Bob Thornton, McGraw's co-star in the film, Friday Night Lights.[26]

In addition to acting in Flicka, McGraw served as executive producer of the soundtrack album, which was released by his record label, StyleSonic Records, in association with Curb Records and Fox 2000 films. It featured the closing credit song "My Little Girl", one of the first two songs that McGraw recorded that he also co-wrote (the other being "I've Got Friends That Do," both of which were included on Greatest Hits Vol. 2).[27] The song was nominated by the Broadcast Film Critics for "Best Song" in a film, and the movie was nominated in the category "Best Family Film (Live Action). The movie proved to be another huge success in the DVD market and has sold over a million copies, debuting at number 3 on the DVD sales chart.[23]

Mcgraw also had a small part in the Michael Mann 2008 film The Kingdom. Mcgraw played a bitter, angered, widower whose wife was killed in the terrorist attack the movie revolves around.


Charitable efforts

As his success has grown, McGraw has become increasingly interested in giving back to the community. When McGraw first reached fame in 1994 he established his annual Swampstock event. Begun as a charity softball game to raise money for hometown little league programs, the event now includes a celebrity softball game and a multi-artist concert that attracts over 11,000 fans per year. The combined events have funded new little league parks and equipment and established college scholarship funds for students in the Northeast Louisiana area.[28]

From 1996-1999 McGraw also hosted an annual New Year's Eve concert in Nashville with special guests including Jeff Foxworthy, the Dixie Chicks, and Martina McBride. The 1997 show raised over $100,000 for the Country Music Foundation Hall of Fame and Museum. Beginning in 1999, McGraw would pick select cities on each tour, and, the night before he was scheduled to perform, would choose a local club and host a quickly-organized show. This tour within a tour became known as "The Bread and Water Tour", and all proceeds from the show would go to a charity from that community.[28]

In the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina, McGraw and his wife, who was raised in Mississippi, joined groups taking supplies to Gulfport, Mississippi. The two also hosted several charity concerts to benefit those who were displaced by the storm.[29] Later in the year the couple established the Neighbor's Keeper Foundation, which provides funding for community charities to assist with basic humanitarian services in the event of a natural disaster or for desperate personal circumstances.

McGraw is also a member of the American Red Cross National Celebrity Cabinet, in which various celebrities donate their time, skills, and fame to help the Red Cross highlight important initiatives and response efforts.[30]

McGraw, a Democrat, has stated that he would one day like to run for public office in the future, possibly for Senate or governor of Tennessee, his home state.[31] In the same interview, he praised former President Bill Clinton.[32]

McGraw has helped out with charity events held by NFL Green Bay Packers Quarterback Brett Favre. The Favre Forward Foundation has featured McGraw (and at other times Faith Hill) performing concerts during dinners and auctions that benefit children with disabilities in Wisconsin and Mississippi. (One instance is recorded on Favre's official website [33]

On July 12th, 2007, it was made public that McGraw and his wife Faith Hill, while in Grand Rapids, Michigan for a performance, donated $5000 to Kailey Kozminski, 3 year-old daughter of Officer Robert Kozminski, a Grand Rapids police officer who was killed on July 8, 2007 while responding to a domestic disturbance.[34]

"The Lady Golfer"

Four lawyers in a law firm lived and died for their Saturday morning
round of golf. It was their favorite moment of the week. Then one of
the lawyers was transferred to an office in another city. It was not
quite the same without him.

A new woman lawyer joined their law firm. One day she overheard the
remaining three talking about their golf round in the break room.
Curious, she spoke up, "You know, I used to play on my golf team in
college and I was pretty good. Would you mind if I joined you next
week?"

The three lawyers looked at each other. They were hesitant. Not one of
them wanted to say 'yes', but she had them on the spot. Finally one
man said it would be okay, but they would be starting pretty early at
6:30 am. He figured the early Tee-Time would discourage her
immediately.

The woman said this might be a problem and asked if she could possibly
be up to 15 minutes late.

They rolled their eyes but said this would be okay.

She smiled and said, "Good, then I'll be there either at 6:30 or 6:45."

She showed up right at 6:30 and wound up beating all three of them
with an eye-opening two-under par round. She was a fun and pleasant
person the entire round.

The guys were impressed! Back in the clubhouse, they congratulated her
and happily invited her back the next week.

She smiled and said, "Sure, I'll be here at 6:30 or 6:45."

The next week she again showed up at 6:30 Saturday morning. Only this
time, she played left-handed. The three lawyers were incredulous as
she still managed to beat them with an even par round despite playing
with her off-hand.

By now the guys were very amazed, but wondered if she was just trying
to make them look bad by beating them left-handed. They could not
figure her out. She was again very pleasant and did not seem to be
showing them up, but each man began to harbor a burning desire to beat
her!

In the third week, they all had their game faces on. However, this
week she was 15 minutes late! This had the guys irritable because each
was determined to play the best round of golf of his life to beat her.
As they waited for her, they figured her late arrival was some petty
gamesmanship on her part. Finally, she showed up. This week the lady
lawyer played right-handed, which was a good thing since she narrowly
beat all three of them. However, she was so gracious and so
complimentary of their strong play that it was hard to keep a grudge
against her. This woman was a riddle no one could figure out!

Back in the clubhouse, she had all three guys shaking their heads at
her ability. They had a couple of beers after their round which helped
the conversation loosen up. Finally, one of the men could contain his
curiosity no longer. He asked her directly, "How do you decide if you
are going to golf right-handed or left-handed? "

The lady blushed and grinned. She said, "That is easy. When my dad
taught me to play golf, I learned I was ambidextrous. I have always
had fun switching back and forth. Then when I met my husband in
college and got married, I discovered he always sleeps in the nude.
From then on, I developed a silly habit. Right before I left in the
morning for golf practice, I would pull the covers off him. If his
"you-know-what" was pointing to the right, I golfed right-handed and
if it was pointed to the left, I golfed left-handed.

Astonished at this bizarre information, one of the guys shot back,
"But what if it's pointed straight up in the air?"

She said, "Then I am fifteen minutes late."

BioBob, where have you been? You had us all worried, honey. Thanks for the golf joke, hawkman. My mom used to tell me that it's not nice to point.

Great background, as usual, and here's one from Tim McGraw that says a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mHaFMqde6A

Good afternoon WA2K and welcome back, Bob.

Here are the bio matches:







Wishing all a good day.

Hi Honey. Was I late? Let's see ...... what's the most plausible lie I can use to fool you. My computer broke. President Bush needed me to help the CIA. The hawks got lost heading north and needed me to show the way. What? You don't believe me! I am truly offended. Hrumph! Hrumph!

Can't fool me, Bob. I believe it all.

Hey PA my love. Nice pictures. In particular I like Glenn Ford. Just saw a film with Glenn Ford and Jack Lemmon in it called Cowboy. Thank God they didn't sing any songs.

Well, folks, we'll have to dedicate this one to the hawk and the puppy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_QflHztmgo