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I'll Never Be Free
"I'll Never Be Free" is a song written by Bennie Benjamin and George Weiss and performed by Kay Starr and Tennessee Ernie Ford. It reached #2 on the U.S. country chart and #3 on the U.S. pop chart in 1950. Other charting versions *Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald released a version of the song which reached #7 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1950. *Annie Laurie and Paul Gayten and His Orchestra released a version of the song which reached #4 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1950. *Dinah Washington released a version of the song which reached #3 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1950. * Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra released a version of the song which reached #8 on the U.S. R&B chart in 1951. *LaVern Baker and Jimmy Ricks released a version of the song which reached #103 on the U.S. pop chart in 1961. *Starr re-released a version of the song as a solo sing which reached #94 on the U.S. pop chart in 1961. * Johnny and Jonie Mosby released a version of the song as a single in 1969 which #26 on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kay Starr
Kay Starr (born Catherine Laverne Starks; July 21, 1922 – November 3, 2016) was an American singer who enjoyed considerable success in the late 1940s and 1950s. She was of Iroquois and Irish heritage. Starr performed multiple genres, such as pop, jazz, and country, but her roots were in jazz. Her 1952 song " Wheel of Fortune" was a smash hit, and later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Additionally, she had big hits with "Allez-Vous-En" (from the Broadway Show CAN-CAN) and "If You Love Me (Really Love Me)" in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Early life Catherine Laverne Starks was born in Dougherty, Oklahoma to Annie and Harry Starks. Her mother's ancestors were Irish-American while her father was a Native American Iroquois. She would later claim to be both Cherokee and Choctaw descent. At the age of three, the Starks family moved to Dallas, Texas, where her father obtained a job installing building sprinklers. Her mother raised chickens to support the family as well. Cather ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lucky Millinder
Lucius Venable "Lucky" Millinder (August 8, 1910 – September 28, 1966) was an American swing music, swing and rhythm and blues, rhythm-and-blues bandleader. Although he could not read or write music, did not play an instrument and rarely sang, his showmanship and musical taste made his bands successful. His group was said to have been the greatest big band to play rhythm and blues, and gave work to a number of musicians who later became influential at the dawn of the rock and roll era. He was inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame in 1986. Early career Millinder was born Lucius Venables in Anniston, Alabama, United States. He took the surname Millinder as a child, and was raised in Chicago. In the 1920s, he worked in clubs, ballrooms, and theatres in Chicago as a master of ceremonies and dancer. He first fronted a band in 1931 for an RKO theater tour, and in 1932 took over the leadership of Doc Crawford's orchestra in Harlem. He also freelanced elsewhere. In 1933, he too ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joanie Sommers
Joanie Sommers (born Joan Drost, February 24, 1941) is an American singer and actress. Her career has focused on jazz, standards and popular song. Early in her career she was billed as "The Voice of the Sixties"; she also collaborated with prominent arrangers, songwriters and producers. Her most recognized song is " Johnny Get Angry", which although atypical of her work became a popular success. Career Sommers was born in Buffalo, New York, She began singing in church to deal with "a difficult childhood". In 1951, at the age of ten, she won an amateur talent contest on a Buffalo television program by singing the Hank Williams song, " Your Cheating Heart". She spent her youth living with her family in North Tonawanda and attended school there until the age of fourteen. In 1955, her family relocated to the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles, where she won honors as a vocalist with her high school band at Venice High School. She subsequently earned additional distinctions at Santa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chris Connor
Mary Jean Loutsenhizer, known professionally as Chris Connor (November 8, 1927 – August 29, 2009), was an American jazz singer. Biography Chris Connor was born Mary Loutsenhizer in Kansas City, Missouri, to Clyde Loutsenhizer and Mabel Shirley. She became proficient on the clarinet, having studied for eight years during middle school and high school. She sang with the college band at the University of Missouri, playing at functions in Columbia, Missouri. In 1949, Connor recorded two songs with Claude Thornhill's band: "There's a Small Hotel" and "I Don't Know Why". With Jerry Wald's big band she recorded "You're the Cream in My Coffee", "Cherokee", " Pennies from Heaven", "Raisins and Almonds", and "Terremoto". Connor and Thornhill reunited in 1952 for a radio broadcast from the Statler Hotel in New York City for which she sang " Wish You Were Here", " Come Rain or Come Shine", "Sorta Kinda", and "Who Are We to Say". She made her final recordings for HighNote: ''Haunt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy & Lillie
Billy & Lillie were an American pop vocal duo, composed of Billy Ford (William T. Ford; March 9, 1919 or 1925 – March 1983) and Lillie Bryant (born February 14, 1940, Newburgh, New York).Joel Whitburn, ''The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits''. 7th edn, 2000. Career Billy Ford was born in Bloomfield, New Jersey; many sources give his birth year as 1925 (or 1927), but blues researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc state 1919. He was a trumpeter, who recorded as a bandleader and accompanist for many labels from the mid-1940s. He recorded two singles for United Records, credited to Billy Ford & the Thunderbirds, without attaining much commercial success. Billy & Lillie recorded for Swan Records in the late 1950s, and charted three hit singles in the United States, two of them written by the songwriter and record producer Bob Crewe, and producer Frank Slay, known as Frank C. Slay, Jr. Crewe later became one of the most successful songwriters and producers in history, having pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extended Play
An extended play (EP) is a Sound recording and reproduction, musical recording that contains more tracks than a Single (music), single but fewer than an album. Contemporary EPs generally contain up to eight tracks and have a playing time of 15 to 30 minutes. An EP is usually less cohesive than an album and more "non-committal". An extended play (EP) originally referred to a specific type of 45 revolutions per minute, rpm phonograph record other than 78 rpm standard play (SP) and 33 rpm LP record, long play (LP), but , also applies to mid-length Compact disc, CDs and Music download, downloads. EPs are considered "less expensive and less time-consuming" for an artist to produce than an album, and have long been popular with punk and indie bands. In K-pop and J-pop, they are usually referred to as Mini-LP, mini-albums. Background History EPs were released in various sizes in different eras. The earliest multi-track records, issued around 1919 by Grey Gull Records, were Vertic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Johnnie Ray
John Alvin Ray (January 10, 1927 – February 24, 1990) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Highly popular for most of the 1950s, Ray has been cited by critics as a major precursor to what became rock and roll, for his jazz and blues-influenced music, and his animated stage personality. Tony Bennett called Ray the "father of rock and roll", and historians have noted him as a pioneering figure in the development of the genre. Born and raised in Dallas, Oregon, Ray, who was partially deaf, began singing professionally at age 15 on Portland radio stations. He gained a local following singing at small, predominantly African-American nightclubs in Detroit, where he was discovered in 1949. In 1951, he signed a contract with Okeh Records, a subsidiary of Columbia Records. On the ''Billboard'' charts, he rose quickly from obscurity with the release of his debut album '' Johnnie Ray'' (1952), as well as with a 78 rpm single, both of whose sides reached the ''Billboard' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A-side And B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of vinyl records and cassettes, and the terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side of a single usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record company intends to be the initial focus of promotional efforts and radio airplay, with the aim of it becoming a hit record. The B-side (or "flip-side") is a secondary recording that typically receives less attention, although some B-sides have been as successful as, or more so than, their A-sides. Use of this language has largely declined in the 21st century as the music industry has transitioned away from analog recordings towards digital formats without physical sides, such as downloads and streaming. Nevertheless, some artists and labels continue to employ the terms ''A-side'' and ''B-side'' metaphorically to describe the type of content a particular release features, with ''B-side'' sometimes representing a "bonus" track or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janis Martin
Janis Darlene Martin (March 27, 1940 – September 3, 2007) was an American rockabilly and country music singer. She was one of the few women working in the male-dominated rock and roll music field during the 1950s and one of country music's early female innovators. Martin was nicknamed the Female Elvis for her dance moves on stage, similar to those of Elvis Presley. Biography Early life and rise to fame Martin was born in Sutherlin, Virginia, east of Danville. Her mother was a stage mother, and her father and uncle were both musicians. Before she was six, Martin was already singing and playing the guitar, inspired by Eddy Arnold and Hank Williams. Over the years, this resulted in statewide contests with over 200 contestants, which she won. As a result, Janis was asked to play on the same bill as Cowboy Copas and Sunshine Sue. Through them Martin became a member of the Old Dominion Barndance on WRVA, which came out of Richmond every Saturday Night on CBS network. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Skylarks (vocal Group)
The Skylarks were an American jazz and pop music vocal group of the 20th century. The group was formed during World War II, in 1942, by four servicemen serving in the American Panama Canal Zone – Bob Sprague (first tenor), Harry Gedicke (second tenor), Harry Shuman (baritone), and arranger and lead singer George Becker. Under the name The Velvetones they toured bases in Panama and appeared in a weekly program on Armed Forces Radio Network. After the end of the war and their discharge, the group relocated to Detroit and added a female lead singer, the lively and charismatic Gilda Maiken. The group appeared on national radio, and Woody Herman engaged them to appear with his band. Upon joining Herman they changed their name to the Blue Moods. They recorded " Stars Fell on Alabama" and toured with Herman, but Herman's band broke up in 1947, after which they recorded two songs with Bing Crosby, who changed their name to The Skylarks. In 1948 they joined and recorded with Jimmy Dor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Cornelius
Helen Cornelius (born Helen Lorene Johnson; December 6, 1941) is an American country singer-songwriter, best remembered for a series of hit duets with Jim Ed Brown, many of which reached the U.S. country singles top ten during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Biography Helen Cornelius was born in Monroe City, Missouri, and was raised on a farm nearby. Her older brothers played in country bands, and she formed a singing trio with sisters Judy and Sharon. Together they toured locally with the blessing of their father. Subsequently, Helen began touring on her own with a backup band called The Crossroads. After completing high school, Cornelius wed and became employed as a secretary. She began touring again at the end of the 1960s and signed with Screen Gems Music as a songwriter in 1970. When the company went under, she sent a demo tape to Jerry Crutchfield, who offered her a contract with MCA Records; eventually she signed with Columbia Records, with whom she released two singles ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Ed Brown
James Edward Brown (April 1, 1934 – June 11, 2015) was an American Country music, country singer who achieved fame in the 1950s with his two sisters as a member of the Browns. He later had a successful solo career from 1965 to 1974, followed by a string of major duet hits with fellow country music vocalist Helen Cornelius, through 1981. Brown was also the host of the ''Country Music Greats Radio Show'', a syndicated country music program from Nashville, Tennessee, Nashville, Tennessee. Biography Jim Ed was born on April 1, 1934, in Sparkman, Arkansas, to Floyd and Birdie Brown. His parents owned a farm and his father also worked at a sawmill. As small children, Jim and his sisters, Maxine Brown (country singer), Maxine and Bonnie Brown (musician), Bonnie, moved with their parents to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. As young adults, the three siblings sang together and individually. This changed in 1954 when Jim Ed and Maxine signed a recording contract as a duo. They earned national recog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
