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Jimmy Witherspoon
James Witherspoon (August 8, 1920 – September 18, 1997) was an American jump blues singer. Early life, family and education Witherspoon was born in Gurdon, Arkansas. His father was a railroad worker who sang in local choirs, and his mother was an avid piano player. Witherspoon's grandson Ahkello Witherspoon is the starting cornerback for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Witherspoon eventually joined the Merchant Marines. Career Witherspoon first attracted attention singing in Calcutta, India, with Teddy Weatherford's band, which made regular radio broadcasts over the US Armed Forces Radio Service during World War II. Witherspoon made his first records with Jay McShann's band in 1945. He first recorded under his own name in 1947, and two years later with the McShann band, he had his first hit, " Ain't Nobody's Business", a song that came to be regarded as his signature tune. In 1950 he had hits with two more songs closely identified with him—"No Rollin' Blues" and "Big Fin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gurdon, Arkansas
Gurdon is a city in Clark County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,212 at the 2010 census. __TOC__ History The town was founded in the late nineteenth century as a railroad town for the timber industry on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (now the Union Pacific Railroad). Originally settled in 1873, the city was incorporated in 1880. The town's name derives from railroad executive Henry Gurdon Marquand's middle name. Gurdon is the birthplace of the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, in 1892. Geography Gurdon is located in southern Clark County at (33.9152871, -93.155354). U.S. Route 67 passes through the city, leading northeast to Arkadelphia, the county seat, and southwest to Prescott. According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and , or 2.88%, is water. Demographics 2020 census As of the 2020 United States census, there were 1,840 people, 1,016 households, and 695 families residing in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Norman
GNP Crescendo Record Co. is an independent record label founded in 1954 by Gene Norman ''(né'' Eugene Abraham Nabatoff; 1922–2015). It started as a producer of jazz, then expanded into many other genres, including comedy, rock, and ''Star Trek'' soundtracks. Currently GNP Cresendo is run by Gene Norman's son, Neil Norman. History After hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles, Norman promoted concerts at the Shrine Auditorium, The Hollywood Bowl and the Pasadena Civic Center, hosted popular radio shows on KFWB and KLAC, and opened his own nightclubs, the Crescendo and The Interlude, on the Sunset Strip. The Crescendo hosted a wide swath of jazz legends and comedians, from Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday to Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, Don Rickles, Dick Gregory, Woody Allen and Bob Newhart. Norman often paid acts their weekly rate for a single night's engagement. The inspiration for the label was to issue live recordings made at concerts promoted and organized b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Percy Mayfield
Percy Mayfield (August 12, 1920August 11, 1984) was an American Rhythm and blues singer with a smooth vocal style. He also was a songwriter, known for the songs " Please Send Me Someone to Love" and "Hit the Road Jack", the latter being a song first recorded by Ray Charles. Career Mayfield was born in Minden, Louisiana, the seat of Webster Parish, in the northwestern part of the state. As a youth, he had a talent for poetry, which led him to songwriting and singing. He began his performing career in Texas and then moved to Los Angeles in 1942, but without success as a singer until 1947, when a small record label, Swing Time Records, signed him to record his song "Two Years of Torture," with a band that included the saxophonist Maxwell Davis, the guitarist Chuck Norris, and the pianist Willard McDaniel. The record sold steadily over the next few years, prompting Art Rupe to sign Mayfield to his label, Specialty Records, in 1950. Mayfield's vocal style was influenced by such sty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Eckstine
William Clarence Eckstine (July 8, 1914 – March 8, 1993) was an American jazz and pop singer and a bandleader during the swing and bebop eras. He was noted for his rich, almost operatic bass-baritone voice. In 2019, Eckstine was posthumously awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award "for performers who, during their lifetimes, have made creative contributions of outstanding artistic significance to the field of recording." His recording of " I Apologize" (MGM, 1948) was given the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999. ''The New York Times'' described him as an "influential band leader" whose "suave bass-baritone" and "full-throated, sugary approach to popular songs inspired singers like Earl Coleman, Johnny Hartman, Joe Williams, Arthur Prysock, and Lou Rawls." Early life and education Eckstine was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of William Eckstein, a chauffeur, and Charlotte Eckstein, a seamstress. Eckstine's paternal grandparents were William F. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Jay McNeely
Cecil James "Big Jay" McNeely (April 29, 1927 – September 16, 2018) was an American rhythm and blues saxophonist. Biography Inspired by Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young, McNeely teamed with his older brother Robert McNeely, who played baritone saxophone, and made his first recordings with drummer Johnny Otis, who ran the Barrelhouse Club that stood only a few blocks from McNeely's home. Shortly after he performed on Otis's "Barrel House Stomp." Ralph Bass, A&R man for Savoy Records, promptly signed him to a recording contract. Bass's boss, Herman Lubinsky, suggested the stage name Big Jay McNeely because Cecil McNeely did not sound commercial. McNeely's first hit was "The Deacon's Hop," an instrumental which topped the ''Billboard'' R&B chart in early 1949. Big Jay McNeely performed for the famed fifth Cavalcade of Jazz concert held at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles produced by Leon Hefflin, Sr. on July 10, 1949. It was at this concert that McNeely and Lionel Hampton got in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddy Banks (saxophonist)
Ulysses "Buddy" Banks (October 3, 1909 – September 7, 1991) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist, pianist, and bandleader. Career Banks played in Charlie Echols's band in Los Angeles from 1933 to 1937 and remained in the group after it was taken over by Claude Kennedy, and then by Emerson Scott, after Kennedy's death. The group then scored a gig at the Paradise Cafe, and Cee Pee Johnson became its leader; Banks played in Johnson's ensemble until 1945. Following this Banks led his own group; this band featured tenor sax and trombone as its most prominent instruments, the trombone position being held by Allen Durham, cousin of Eddie Durham and Herschel Evans, and then by Wesley Huff. Guitarist Wesley Pile and drummer Monk McFay also recorded as members of this group. The ensemble played throughout southern California and recorded until 1949. Banks led a new group in 1950, but disbanded it quickly. Banks and his Orchestra performed at the fifth Cavalcade of Jazz held at Wr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lionel Hampton
Lionel Leo Hampton (April 20, 1908 – August 31, 2002) was an American jazz vibraphonist, pianist, percussionist, and bandleader. Hampton worked with jazz musicians from Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, and Buddy Rich, to Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, and Quincy Jones. In 1992, he was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame, and he was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1996. Biography Early life Lionel Hampton was born in 1908 in Louisville, Kentucky, and was raised by his mother. Shortly after he was born, he and his mother moved to her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama. He spent his early childhood in Kenosha, Wisconsin, before he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, in 1916. As a youth, Hampton was a member of the Bud Billiken Club, an alternative to the Boy Scouts of America, which was off-limits because of racial segregation. During the 1920s, while still a teenager, Hampton took xylophone lessons from Jimmy Bertrand and began to play drums. Hampton was raised ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Big Joe Turner
Joseph Vernon "Big Joe" Turner Jr. (May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985) was an American singer from Kansas City, Missouri. According to songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." His greatest fame was due to his rock-and-roll recordings in the 1950s, particularly "Shake, Rattle and Roll", but his career as a performer endured from the 1920s into the 1980s. Turner was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, with the Hall lauding him as "the brawny voiced 'Boss of the Blues. Career Early days Turner was born May 18, 1911, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States. His father was killed in a train accident when Turner was four years old. He sang in his church, and on street corners for money. He left school at age fourteen to work in Kansas City's nightclubs, first as a cook and later as a singing bartender. He became known as "The Singing Barman", and worked in such venues as the Kingfish Club and the Sunset, where he and his par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Liggins And The Honeydrippers
Joseph Christopher Liggins, Jr. (born Theodro Elliott; July 9, 1916 – July 26, 1987) was an American R&B, jazz and blues pianist and vocalist who led Joe Liggins and his Honeydrippers in the 1940s and 1950s. His band appeared often on the ''Billboard'' magazine charts. The band's biggest hit was "The Honeydripper", released in 1945. Joe Liggins was the older brother of R&B performer Jimmy Liggins. Music career The son of Harriett and Elijah Elliott, he was born in Seminole, Oklahoma, and took his stepfather's surname, Liggins, as a child. He apparently dropped the name Theodro and adopted the names Joseph Christopher during the 1930s. The family moved to San Diego in 1932.Michael Jack Kirby, "Joe Liggins – Pink Champagne", ''Wayback Attack'' Retrieved November 15, 2016 He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
International Sweethearts Of Rhythm
The International Sweethearts of Rhythm was the first integrated all-women's band in the United States. During the 1940s the band featured some of the best female musicians of the day. They played swing and jazz on a national circuit that included the Apollo Theater in New York City, the Regal Theater in Chicago, and the Howard Theater in Washington, D.C. After a performance in Chicago in 1943, the ''Chicago Defender'' announced the band was "one of the hottest stage shows that ever raised the roof of the theater!" They have been labeled "the most prominent and probably best female aggregation of the Big Band era". During feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s in America, the International Sweethearts of Rhythm became popular with feminist writers and musicologists who made it their goal to change the discourse on the history of jazz to include both men and women musicians. Flutist Antoinette Handy was one scholar who documented the story of these female musicians of color. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Little Miss Cornshucks
Little Miss Cornshucks (or Lil' Miss Cornshucks) was the stage name of Mildred Jorman (born Mildred Elizabeth Cummings; May 26, 1923 – November 11, 1999). She was an American rhythm and blues and jazz singer and songwriter. In her stage show from the 1940s and early 1950s she portrayed herself as a simple farm girl. Her vocal style inspired later R&B and soul singers, among them LaVern Baker, Ruth Brown, Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Wynona Carr and Billy Wright. Her own career never achieved full recognition in her lifetime. Life Cummings was born in Dayton, Ohio.Dave Penny, "Little Miss Cornshucks" This is My Story. BlackCat Rockabilly. She was the youngest child of a large musical family of |
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American Singing, singer, songwriter, and actor whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire (1931 song), That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", his other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Jezebel (Frankie Laine song), Jezebel", "High Noon (song), High Noon", "I Believe (1953 song), I Believe", "Hey Joe (1953 song), Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water (song), Cool Water", "Rawhide (song), Rawhide", and "You Gave Me a Mountain". He sang well-known theme songs for many western (genre), Western film soundtracks, including ''3:10 to Yuma (1957 film), 3:10 To Yuma'', ''Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (film), Gunfight at the O.K. Co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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