HOME





Checkmates, Ltd.
The Checkmates, Ltd. were an American R&B group from Fort Wayne, Indiana. The group, discovered by Nancy Wilson, was named such because the group included both black and white members, and their various skin tones evoked a chessboard; their one major hit was 1969's " Black Pearl", produced by Phil Spector. The song peaked at No. 13 on the U.S. pop chart. Their remake of " Proud Mary" reached No. 30 on the UK Singles Chart in late 1969. The group broke up in 1970, but reunited in 1974 for a few more years. They performed on the same billing as Frank Sinatra and Herb Alpert, and sang the national anthem for the Thrilla in Manila in 1975. Lead singer Sonny Charles later had a moderately successful career as a solo artist. Charles and Marvin ("Sweet Louie") Smith later reunited and toured the U.S. into the 2000s. Smith died on December 15, 2007, of a heart attack, while on a cruise ship in the Caribbean where he and Sonny Charles were scheduled to perform. He was 68. Membe ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Proud Mary
"Proud Mary" is a song by American rock band Creedence Clearwater Revival, written by vocalist and lead guitarist John Fogerty. It was released as a single in January1969 by Fantasy Records and on the band's second studio album, '' Bayou Country''. The song became a major hit in the United States, peaking at No. 2 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in March 1969, the first of five singles to peak at No. 2 for the group. Later that year, R&B singer Solomon Burke released a rendition on Bell Records for his album ''Proud Mary'' that reached No. 15 on the ''Billboard'' R&B chart. Another version by R&B duo Ike & Tina Turner for their album '' Workin' Together'', released on Liberty Records in 1971, reached No. 4 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 and No. 5 on the ''Billboard'' R&B chart. They won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Group at the 14th Annual Grammy Awards for their rendition in 1972. After the disbandment of the duo, Tina Turner continued to perform the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Billboard (magazine)
''Billboard'' (stylized in letter case, lowercase since 2013) is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events and styles related to the music industry. Its Billboard charts, music charts include the Billboard Hot 100, Hot 100, the Billboard 200, 200, and the Billboard Global 200, Global 200, tracking the most popular albums and songs in various music genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm and operates several television shows. ''Billboard'' was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson acquired Hennegan's interest in 1900 for $500. In the early years of the 20th century, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows, and also created a mail service for travelling entertainers. ''Billboard'' began focusing more on the music industry as the jukebox ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Steve Miller Band
The Steve Miller Band is an American rock music, rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1966. The band is led by Steve Miller (musician), Steve Miller on guitar and lead vocals. The group had a string of mid- to late-1970s hit singles that are staples of classic rock radio, as well as several earlier psychedelic rock albums. Miller left his first band to move to San Francisco and form the Steve Miller Blues Band. Shortly after Harvey Kornspan negotiated the band's contract with Capitol Records in 1967, the band shortened its name to the Steve Miller Band. In February 1968, the band recorded its debut album, ''Children of the Future (Steve Miller Band album), Children of the Future''. It went on to produce the albums ''Sailor (Steve Miller Band album), Sailor'', ''Brave New World (Steve Miller Band album), Brave New World'', ''Your Saving Grace'', ''Number 5 (Steve Miller Band album), Number 5'', ''The Joker (album), The Joker'', ''Fly Like an Eagle (album), Fly Like an E ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Caribbean
The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America to the west, and South America to the south, it comprises numerous List of Caribbean islands, islands, cays, islets, reefs, and banks. It includes the Lucayan Archipelago, Greater Antilles, and Lesser Antilles of the West Indies; the Quintana Roo Municipalities of Quintana Roo#Municipalities, islands and Districts of Belize#List, Belizean List of islands of Belize, islands of the Yucatán Peninsula; and the Bay Islands Department#Islands, Bay Islands, Miskito Cays, Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina, Archipelago of San Andrés, Providencia, and Santa Catalina, Corn Islands, and San Blas Islands of Central America. It also includes the coastal areas on the Mainland, continental mainland of the Americas bordering the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Cruise Ship
Cruise ships are large passenger ships used mainly for vacationing. Unlike ocean liners, which are used for transport, cruise ships typically embark on round-trip voyages to various ports of call, where passengers may go on Tourism, tours known as "shore excursions". Modern cruise ships tend to have less hull strength, speed, and agility compared to ocean liners. However, they have added amenities to cater to water tourism, water tourists, with recent vessels being described as "balcony-laden floating condominiums". there were 302 cruise ships operating worldwide, with a combined capacity of 664,602 passengers. Cruising has become a major part of the tourism industry, with an estimated market of $29.4 billion per year, and over 19 million passengers carried worldwide annually . The industry's rapid growth saw nine or more newly built ships catering to a North American clientele added every year since 2001, as well as others servicing European clientele until the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Myocardial Infarction
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is retrosternal Angina, chest pain or discomfort that classically radiates to the left shoulder, arm, or jaw. The pain may occasionally feel like heartburn. This is the dangerous type of acute coronary syndrome. Other symptoms may include shortness of breath, nausea, presyncope, feeling faint, a diaphoresis, cold sweat, Fatigue, feeling tired, and decreased level of consciousness. About 30% of people have atypical symptoms. Women more often present without chest pain and instead have neck pain, arm pain or feel tired. Among those over 75 years old, about 5% have had an MI with little or no history of symptoms. An MI may cause heart failure, an Cardiac arrhythmia, irregular heartbeat, cardiogenic shock or cardiac arrest. Most MIs occur d ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Solo (music)
In music, a solo () is a musical composition, piece or a section (music), section of a piece played or sung featuring a single performer, who may be performing completely alone or supported by an accompanying instrument such as a piano or Organ (music), organ, a Basso continuo, continuo group (in Baroque music), or the rest of a choir, orchestra, band, or other ensemble. Performing a solo is "to solo", and the performer is known as a ''soloist''. The plural is soli or the anglicisation, anglicised form solos. In some contexts these are interchangeable, but ''soli'' tends to be restricted to classical music, and mostly either the solo performers or the solo passage (music), passages in a single piece. Furthermore, the word ''soli'' can be used to refer to a small number of simultaneous parts assigned to single players in an orchestral composition. In the Baroque concerto grosso, the term for such a group of soloists was ''Concertino (group), concertino''. An instrumental solo is ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Sonny Charles
Sonny Charles (born Charles Hemphill; September 4, 1940)Joel Whitburn, ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits''. 7th edn, 2000 is an American soul singer. Biography Charles Hemphill born to a sharecropping family at Blytheville, Arkansas. At the age of 10. he moved with his parents and six sisters to Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was the lead singer of the Checkmates, Ltd. in the 1960s and 1970s, and it is his vocals that are heard out front on their 1969 Phil Spector-produced hit, " Black Pearl". Charles launched a solo career in the early 1970s, and had a brief reunion with the Checkmates during the 1980s. Thereafter, from the mid- to late 1990s, he toured with another member of the Checkmates, Ltd., Marvin "Sweet Louie" Smith, under the Checkmates name. Charles's 1982 album, ''The Sun Still Shines'', recorded on Highrise Records, hit #136 on the ''Billboard'' album chart and #14 on U.S. Black Albums on the strength of the single "Put It in a Magazine". Written by Charles with pr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Lead Vocalist
The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of the ensemble as the dominant sound. In vocal group performances, notably in soul and gospel music, and early rock and roll, the lead singer takes the main vocal melody, with a chorus or harmony vocals provided by other band members as backing vocalists. Lead vocalists typically incorporate some movement or gestures into their performance, and some may participate in dance routines during the show, particularly in pop music. Some lead vocalists also play an instrument during the show, either in an accompaniment role (such as strumming a guitar part), or playing a lead instrument/instrumental solo role when they are not singing (as in the case of lead singer-guitar virtuoso Jimi Hendrix). The lead singer also typically guides the vocal e ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Thrilla In Manila
Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier III, billed as the ''Thrilla in Manila'', was the third and final professional boxing match between undisputed champion Muhammad Ali, and former champion Joe Frazier, for the heavyweight championship of the world. The bout was conceded after fourteen rounds on October 1, 1975, at the Araneta Coliseum in Cubao, Quezon City, Philippines, located in Rizal at the time of the event (later Metro Manila shortly after the event). The venue was temporarily renamed the "Philippine Coliseum" for this match. Ali won by corner retirement (RTD) after Frazier's chief second, Eddie Futch, asked the referee to stop the fight after the 14th round. The contest's name is derived from Ali's rhyming boast that the fight would be "a killa and a thrilla and a chilla, when I get that gorilla in Manila." The bout is almost universally regarded as one of the best and most brutal fights in boxing history, and was the culmination of a three-bout rivalry between the two fight ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

National Anthem
A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and European nations tend towards more ornate and operatic pieces, while those in the Middle East, Oceania, Africa, and the Caribbean use a more simplistic fanfare. Some countries that are devolved into multiple constituent states have their own official musical compositions for them (such as with the United Kingdom, Russia, and the Soviet Union); their constituencies' songs are sometimes referred to as national anthems even though they are not sovereign states. History In the early modern period, some European monarchies adopted royal anthems. Some of these anthems have survived into current use. " God Save the King/Queen", first performed in 1619, remains the royal anthem of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms . , adopted as the roya ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]