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Spike Jones
Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones (December 14, 1911 – May 1, 1965) was an American musician and bandleader specializing in spoof arrangements of popular songs and classical music. Ballads receiving the Jones treatment were punctuated with gunshots, whistles, cowbells, hiccups, burps, and outlandish and comedic vocals. Jones and his band recorded under the title Spike Jones and His City Slickers from the early 1940s to the mid-1950s, and toured the United States and Canada as "The Musical Depreciation Revue". Biography Lindley Armstrong Jones was born in Long Beach, California, the son of Ada (Armstrong) and Lindley Murray Jones, a Southern Pacific railroad agent. Young Lindley Jones was given the nickname 'Spike' for being so thin that he was compared to a railroad spike. At the age of 11 he got his first set of drums. As a teenager he played in bands that he formed himself; Jones' first band was called Spike Jones and his Five Tacks. A railroad restaurant chef taught him ho ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spike Jonze
Adam H. Spiegel (born October 22, 1969), known professionally as Spike Jonze, is an American filmmaker, actor, musician, and photographer. His work includes commercials, film, music videos, skateboard videos and television. Jonze began his career as a teenager photographing BMX riders and skateboarders for ''Freestylin' Magazine'' and '' Transworld Skateboarding'', and co-founding the youth culture magazine '' Dirt''. Moving into filmmaking, he began shooting street skateboarding films, including the influential '' Video Days'' (1991). Jonze co-founded the skateboard company Girl Skateboards in 1993 with riders Rick Howard and Mike Carroll. Jonze's filmmaking style made him an in-demand director of music videos for much of the 1990s, resulting in collaborations with R.E.M., Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Ween, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk, Weezer, Björk, Arcade Fire and Kanye West. Jonze began his feature film directing career with ''Being John Malkovich'' (1999) and ''Adapta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al Jolson
Al Jolson (born Eizer Yoelson; June 9, 1886 – October 23, 1950) was a Lithuanian-American Jewish singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian. He was one of the United States' most famous and highest-paid stars of the 1920s, and was self-billed as "The World's Greatest Entertainer." Jolson was known for his "shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach" towards performing, as well as for popularizing many of the songs he sang. Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers." Although best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, '' The Jazz Singer'' (1927), he starred in a series of successful musical films during the 1930s. After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with '' The Jolson Story'' (1946), in which Larry Parks played Jolson, with the singer dubbing for Parks. The formula was repeate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stan Wrightsman
Stanley Aubrey Wrightsman (June 15, 1910 – December 17, 1975) was an American jazz pianist. Biography Wrightsman, whose father was a musician, began playing professionally in a Gulfport, Mississippi hotel, and in territory bands in Oklahoma. In 1930, he moved to New Orleans where he played with Ray Miller. From 1935–1936 he worked with Ben Pollack in Chicago. An illness (TB) interrupted his career, after which he worked in California with the orchestra of Seger Ellis in 1937. His first recordings were made soon thereafter, especially with Spike Jones and his City Slickers. In the 1940s and 1950s, Wrightsman played with various big bands and ensembles (mainly Traditional Jazz), including Artie Shaw, Wingy Manone, Eddie Miller, Rudy Vallee, Nappy Lamare, Johnny Mercer, Harry James, Bob Crosby (1950–51), Matty Matlock, Pete Fountain, The Rampart Street Paraders, Ray Bauduc, Wild Bill Davison, and Bob Scobey. He also appeared on the soundtrack of '' Blues in the Nigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Musical ensemble, bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as Compact disc, CDs replaced LP record, LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a musi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Decca Records
Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American Decca's president. In 1937, anticipating Nazi aggression leading to World War II, Lewis sold American Decca and the link between the U.K. and U.S. Decca labels was broken for several decades. The British label was renowned for its development of recording methods, while the American company developed the concept of cast albums in the musical genre. Both wings are now part of the Universal Music Group. The U.S. Decca label was the foundation company that evolved into UMG (Universal Music Group). Label name The name dates back to a portable gramophone called the "Decca Dulcephone" patented in 1914 by musical instrument makers Barnett Samuel and Sons. The name "Decca" was coined by Wilfred S. Samuel by merging the word "Mecca" with the initial D of their log ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cindy Walker
Cindy Walker (July 20, 1918 – March 23, 2006) was an American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. She wrote many popular and enduring songs recorded by many artists. She adopted a craftsman-like approach to her songwriting, often tailoring particular songs to specific artists. She produced a large body of songs that have been described as “direct, honest and unpretentious”. She had Top 10 hits spread over five decades. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1997, and the Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame in March 2011. Early life Cindy Walker was born on July 20, 1918, on her grandparents' farm near Mart, Texas (near Mexia, east of Waco), the daughter of a cotton-broker. Her maternal grandfather F.L. Eiland was a noted composer of hymns and her mother was a fine pianist. From childhood Cindy Walker was fond of poetry and wrote habitually. Career Beginnings As a teenager, inspired by newspaper accounts of the dust storms o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
White Christmas (song)
"White Christmas" is an Irving Berlin song reminiscing about an old-fashioned Christmas setting. The song was written by Berlin for the 1942 musical film '' Holiday Inn''. The composition won the Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 15th Academy Awards. Since its release, "White Christmas" has been covered by many artists, the version sung by Bing Crosby being the world's best-selling single (in terms of sales of physical media) with estimated sales in excess of 50 million copies worldwide. When the figures for other versions of the song are added to Crosby's, sales of the song exceed 100 million. History Origin Accounts vary as to when and where Berlin wrote the song. One story is that he wrote it in 1940, in warm La Quinta, California, while staying at the La Quinta Hotel, a frequent Hollywood retreat also favored by writer-director-producer Frank Capra, although the Arizona Biltmore also claims the song was written there. He often stayed up all night writing. One da ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The John Scott Trotter Orchestra
John Scott Trotter Jr. (June 14, 1908 – October 29, 1975), also known as "Uncle John", was an American arranger, composer and orchestra leader. Trotter was best known for conducting the John Scott Trotter Orchestra which backed singer and entertainer Bing Crosby on record and on his radio programs from 1937 to 1954. He also worked with Vince Guaraldi on the score for ''Peanuts'' animated television specials and feature films between 1966 and 1975. Early life Trotter was born John Scott Trotter, Jr. on June 14, 1908, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was born to parents John Scott Trotter (June 26, 1881 – August 8, 1949) and Lelia Trotter (née Bias) (May 10, 1885 – July 7, 1965). Trotter attended local schools in Charlotte. He studied piano under Ida Moore Alexander. In 1925, Trotter entered the University of North Carolina, where he began his career as a professional musician playing piano for a college band led by Hal Kemp. Kemp had entered the university in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Der Fuehrer's Face (song)
''Der Fuehrer's Face'' (originally titled ''A Nightmare in Nutziland'' or ''Donald Duck in Nutziland'' ) is a 1943 American animated anti-Nazi propaganda short film produced by Walt Disney Productions, created in 1942 and released on January 1, 1943 by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon, which features Donald Duck in a nightmare setting working at a factory in Nazi Germany, was made in an effort to sell war bonds and is an example of American propaganda during World War II. The film was directed by Jack Kinney and written by Joe Grant and Dick Huemer. Spike Jones released a version of Oliver Wallace's theme for the short before the film was released. ''Der Fuehrer's Face'' won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film at the 15th Academy Awards. It was the only Donald Duck film to receive the honor, although eight other films were also nominated. In 1994, it was voted Number 22 of " the 50 Greatest Cartoons" of all time by members of the animation field. However, because of the pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Del Porter
Del Porter (April 13, 1902, Newberg, Oregon – October 4, 1977, Los Angeles) was an American jazz vocalist, saxophonist, and clarinetist who, in the 1930s, performed on Broadway, toured with Glenn Miller, and recorded with Bing Crosby, Dick Powell, and Red Nichols, and in the 1940s, led his own big band. Porter was a singer with the Foursome, which came to prominence in the 1930 Broadway hit show, ''Girl Crazy.'' Porter, the best known member of the quartet, co-founded City Slickers with Spike Jones, about the time his group The Feather Merchants split up. With the Foursome's arranger and Porter's lifelong friend, Raymond M. Johnson, Porter reorganized the quartet around 1946 as the Sweet Potato Tooters. "Sweet potato" is a nickname for an ocarina. On Broadway The Foursome, with members Del Porter, Ray Johnson, J. Marshall Smith and Dwight Snyder, first appeared on Broadway in the two-act musical "Ripples" that ran for 55 performances. The show opened on February 11, 1930, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RCA Records
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Arista Records, and Epic Records. The label has released multiple genres of music, including pop, classical, rock, hip hop, afrobeat, electronic, R&B, blues, jazz, and country. Its name is derived from the initials of its defunct parent company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). RCA Records was fully acquired by Bertelsmann in 1987, making it a part of Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG) and became a part of Sony BMG Music Entertainment after the 2004 merger of BMG and Sony; it was acquired by the latter in 2008, after the dissolution of Sony/BMG and the restructuring of Sony Music. RCA Records is the corporate successor of the Victor Talking Machine Company, founded in 1901, making it the second-oldest record label in America ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
