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Billy Daniels
William Boone Daniels (September 12, 1915 – October 7, 1988) was an American singer active in the United States and Europe from the mid-1930s to 1988, notable for his hit recording of " That Old Black Magic" and his pioneering performances on early 1950s television. He was one of the first African-American entertainers to cross over into the mainstream. Daniels was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1977. Life and career Early life Daniels was born in Jacksonville, Florida, United States. where his father was a postmaster and notary. His mother was a schoolteacher and organist. Daniels had a heritage of Portuguese sailor, Native American (Choctaw), African American, and frontiersman Daniel Boone. Early career In 1935, Daniels moved from Jacksonville to New York to attend Columbia University. He planned to become a lawyer, but he was sidetracked during the Depression. His grandmother was a seamstress in Harlem for the ''Ziegfeld Follies'', and she encoura ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jacksonville, Florida
Jacksonville ( ) is the most populous city proper in the U.S. state of Florida, located on the Atlantic coast of North Florida, northeastern Florida. It is the county seat of Duval County, Florida, Duval County, with which the City of Jacksonville Jacksonville Consolidation, consolidated in 1968. It was the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020, and became the 10th List of United States cities by population, largest U.S. city by population in 2023. Jacksonville straddles the St. Johns River in the First Coast region of northeastern Florida, about south of the Georgia state line ( to the urban core/downtown) and north of Miami. The Jacksonville Beaches communities are along the adjacent Atlantic coast. The area was originally inhabited by the Timucua people, and in 1564 was the site of the French colony of Fort Caroline, one of the earliest European settlements in what is now the continental United States. Under B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, alternatively billed as Nat "King" Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's career as a jazz and Traditional pop, pop vocalist started in the late 1930s and spanned almost three decades where he found success and recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. Cole started his career as a jazz pianist in the late 1930s, when he formed the King Cole Trio, which became the top-selling group (and the only black act) on Capitol Records in the 1940s. Cole's trio was the model for small jazz band, jazz ensembles that followed. Starting in 1950, he transitioned to become a solo singer billed as Nat King Cole. Despite achieving mainstream success, Cole faced intense racial discrimination during his career. While not a major vocal public figure in the civil rights movement, Cole was a member of his local NAACP branch and participated in the 1963 March ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
When You're Smiling (film)
''When You're Smiling'' is a 1950 American musical film directed by Joseph Santley and starring Jerome Courtland, Frankie Laine and Lola Albright.Stephens p.203 Plot Cast * Jerome Courtland as Gerald Durham * Frankie Laine as Frankie Laine * Billy Daniels as Billy Daniels * Lola Albright as Peggy Martin * Jerome Cowan as Herbert Reynolds * Margo Woode as Linda Reynolds * Collette Lyons as Nan Doran * Robert Shayne as Jack Lacey * Don Otis as Don Otis * Ray Teal as Steve * Jimmy Lloyd as Dave * Donna Hamilton as Margie * Edward Earle as Foster * Frank Nelson as Jeweler * Neyle Morrow Francis Neyle Marx Jr. (October 28, 1914 – September 30, 2006) was an American film and television actor. He regularly appeared in films made by film director Samuel Fuller. Career Morrow was born in Jacksonville, Florida. He began his scree ... as Carlo References Bibliography * Michael L. Stephens. ''Art Directors in Cinema: A Worldwide Biographical Dictionary''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were an American close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews (1911–1967), soprano Maxene Anglyn Andrews (1916–1995), and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie Andrews (1918–2013). The sisters have sold an estimated 80 million records. Their 1941 hit " Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" can be considered an early example of jump blues. Other songs closely associated with the Andrews Sisters include their first major hit, " Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (Means That You're Grand)" (1937), " Beer Barrel Polka (Roll Out the Barrel)" (1939), "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar" (1940), " Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me)" (1942), and " Rum and Coca-Cola" (1945), which helped introduce American audiences to calypso. The Andrews Sisters' harmonies and songs are still influential today and have been copied and recorded by entertainers such as Patti Page, Bette Midler, Christ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bubbling Brown Sugar
''Bubbling Brown Sugar'' is a musical revue written by Loften Mitchell based on a concept by Rosetta LeNoire and featuring the music of numerous African-American artists who were popular during the Harlem Renaissance, 1920–1940, including Duke Ellington, Eubie Blake, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and Fats Waller. Original music, including the title theme song "Bubbling Brown Sugar," was composed by pianist Emme Kemp, a protégé of the legendary Eubie Blake. It was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Robert M. Cooper directed and produced the Broadway and tour productions. The show was set in a Harlem nightclub of the 1920s-1940s. It originally played at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrew, opening on February 15, 1975, and running for 12 performances. It opened on Broadway at the ANTA Playhouse on March 2, 1976, and closed on December 31, 1977, after 766 performances.Dietz, p.286-288 Synopsis Setting: Harlem, 197 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hello, Dolly! (musical)
''Hello, Dolly!'' is a 1964 musical with lyrics and music by Jerry Herman and a book by Michael Stewart, based on Thornton Wilder's 1938 farce '' The Merchant of Yonkers'', which Wilder revised and retitled '' The Matchmaker'' in 1954. The musical follows the story of Dolly Gallagher Levi, a strong-willed matchmaker, as she travels to Yonkers, New York, to find a match for the miserly "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder. ''Hello, Dolly!'' debuted at the Fisher Theater in Detroit on November 18, 1963, directed and choreographed by Gower Champion and produced by David Merrick. It starred stage performer Carol Channing as Dolly Gallagher Levi, a role theatrical audiences of the world would forever associate with her. The show moved to Broadway in 1964, winning 10 Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Actress in a Musical for Channing. The awards earned set a record which the play held for 37 years. The show album ''Hello, Dolly! An Original Cast ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearl Bailey
Pearl Mae Bailey (March 29, 1918 – August 17, 1990) was an American actress, singer, comedian and author. After appearing in vaudeville, she made her Broadway debut in '' St. Louis Woman'' in 1946. She received a Special Tony Award for the title role in the all-black production of '' Hello, Dolly!'' in 1968. In 1986, she won a Daytime Emmy award for her performance as a fairy godmother in the ABC Afterschool Special ''Cindy Eller: A Modern Fairy Tale''. Her rendition of " Takes Two to Tango" hit the top ten in 1952. In 1976, she became the first African-American to receive the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on October 17, 1988. Early life Bailey was born in Newport News, Virginia to the Reverend Joseph James and Ella Mae Ricks Bailey. When she was very young, the family moved to Washington, DC. After her parents' divorce, Bailey moved to Philadelphia to live with her mother. Bailey made her stage-singing debu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sammy Davis Jr
Samuel George Davis Jr. (December 8, 1925 – May 16, 1990) was an American singer, actor, comedian, dancer, and musician. At age two, Davis began his career in Vaudeville with his father Sammy Davis Sr. and the Will Mastin Trio, which toured nationally, and his film career began in 1933. After military service, Davis returned to the trio and became a sensation following key nightclub performances at Ciro's (in West Hollywood) in 1951, including one after the 23rd Academy Awards, Academy Awards ceremony. With the trio, he became a recording artist. In 1954, at the age of 29, he lost his left eye in a car accident. Several years later, he converted to Judaism, finding commonalities between the oppression experienced both by black Americans and Jewish communities.Sammy Davis Jr. Biography Biography.com. Retrieve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Memphis Bound
''Memphis Bound'' (usually styled ''Memphis Bound!'') is a 1945 American musical based on the Gilbert and Sullivan opera ''H.M.S. Pinafore''. The score was adapted and augmented by Don Walker and Clay Warnick, with a libretto credited to Albert Barker and Sally Benson, "with gratitude to W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan." The original production starred an all-black cast including Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Avon Long, Billy Daniels, Ada Brown, and Sheila Guyse. Plot An all-African-American touring company is traveling to Memphis on a showboat, the ''Calliboga Queen''. When the boat is run aground in Tennessee, the company mounts a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's ''H.M.S. Pinafore'' to raise funds to get it unstuck. Much of the musical consists of a play within a play, as the company presents a musically updated version of the Gilbert and Sullivan opera; the boat pilot (played by Bill Robinson in the original production) takes a major role as Sir Joseph Porter, First ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Records (1944)
Apollo Records was a record company and label founded in New York City by Hy Siegel and Ted Gottlieb in 1944. A year later it was sold to Ike and Bess Berman. Apollo was known for blues (Doc Pomus), doo-wop ( The Larks), gospel (Mahalia Jackson), jazz, and rock and roll. Early years In the early 1940s, the Bermans and Siegel worked at the Rainbow Record Shop on 125th Street in Harlem. They named the label after the nearby Apollo Theater. Siegel served as Apollo's first president. Initially Apollo employed three product lines that included a 300 series, featuring rhythm and blues and jazz artists, and a 100 series which was a variety of genres: gospel, calypso, Country music and Jewish comedy. By issue #188, the 100 series shifted exclusively towards gospel. The third line, starting at #750, was dubbed "Jazz Masterworks". Apollo recorded rhythm and blues singers Dinah Washington and Wynonie Harris before they became famous on other labels. Dean Martin recorded briefly for the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnny Mercer
John Herndon Mercer (November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976) was an American lyricist, songwriter, and singer, as well as a record label executive who co-founded Capitol Records with music industry businessmen Buddy DeSylva and Wallichs Music City, Glenn E. Wallichs. He is best known as a Tin Pan Alley lyricist, but he also composed music and was a popular singer who recorded his own as well as others' songs from the mid-1930s through the mid-1950s. Mercer's songs were among the most successful hits of the time, including "Moon River", "Days of Wine and Roses (song), Days of Wine and Roses", "Autumn Leaves (1945 song), Autumn Leaves", and "Hooray for Hollywood". He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,500 songs, including compositions for movies and Broadway theatre, Broadway shows. He received nineteen Academy Awards, Oscar nominations, and won four Academy Award for Best Original Song, Best Original Song Oscars. Early life Mercer was born in 1909, in Savannah, Georgia, where one o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Harold Arlen
Harold Arlen (born Hyman Arluck; February 15, 1905 – April 23, 1986) was an American composer of popular music, who composed over 500 songs, a number of which have become known worldwide. In addition to composing the songs for the 1939 film ''The Wizard of Oz'' (lyrics by Yip Harburg), including "Over the Rainbow", which won him the Oscar for Academy Award for Best Original Song, Best Original Song, he was nominated as composer for 8 other Oscar awards. Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the Great American Songbook. "Over the Rainbow" was voted the 20th century's No. 1 song by the Recording Industry Association of America, RIAA and the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA. Life and career Arlen was born in Buffalo, New York, the child of a Jewish hazzan, cantor. His twin brother died the next day. He learned to play the piano as a youth, and formed a band, Hyman Arluck's Snappy Trio, at age 15. He left home at 16 against his parents' wishes; within two years, he was per ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
