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More handpicked essays just for you.
The evolution of music
The evolution of music
The evolution of music
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Cab Calloway was an influential singer and actor in the 1930's. Born in Rochester, NY, on December 25, 1907, he started from rock bottom and worked his way up, until he was discovered and on top. To get to the top, Cab was a part of many different scenes and had much help from family and friends.
According to Dan Gediman, Cab was the "Hi De Ho" man, a legendary showman, gifted singer, bandleader, actor, and fashion setter. He was a larger than life figure, who was immortalized in cartoons and caricatures, was also the leader of one of the greatest bands of the Swing Era (Dan Gediman, "Cab Calloway"). Scott Yanow thought Cab was "One of the great entertainers," and Cab's name was a household one by 1932, and never really declined in fame (Scott Yanow, "Cab Calloway's Biography").
Cab grew up in Baltimore, and attended law school there briefly, before hit quit school and set off to try and make it as a singer and dancer. As a young man Cab was following his father's footsteps in becoming a lawyer, going to law school and studying law. Cab wanted to be an entertainer even though his family discouraged him. They thought that it would be more appropriate for him to become a lawyer like his dad. Although, at the time that he was going to law school, his sister, Blanche Calloway, was a popular singer and was producing and singing a few fine records before retiring in the mid 1930's (Yanow). Well, his sister Blanche who was a prominent singer of the time convinced Cab to put more of an effort into his entertainment career. So while Cab was attending law school in Chicago, he also moonlighted at local nightclubs as a performer. While performing in Chicago he met the famous trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong, who taught him to scat. According to the Schoumbrg Center for Research in black Culture scat singing in music is "a jazz vocal style using emotive, onomatopoeic, and nonsense syllables instead of words in solo improvisations on a melody". Scat has dim antecedents in the West African practice of assigning fixed syllables to percussion patterns, but the style was made popular by trumpeter and singer Louis Armstrong from 1927 on. The popular theory that scat singing began when a vocalist forgot the lyrics may be true, but this origin does not explain the persistence of the style.
Arguably the most popular — and certainly the busiest — movie leading man in Hollywood history, John Wayne entered the film business while working as a laborer on the Fox Studios lot during summer vacations from university, which he attended on a football scholarship. He met and was befriended by John Ford, a young director who was beginning to make a name for himself in action films, comedies, and dramas. Wayne was cast in small roles in Ford's late-'20s films, occasionally under the name Duke Morrison. It was Ford who recommended Wayne to director Raoul Walsh for the male lead in the 1930 epic Western The Big Trail, it was a failure at the box office, but the movie showed Wayne's potential as a leading actor. During the next nine years, be busied himself in a multitude of B-Westerns and serials — most notably Shadow of the Eagle in between occasional bit parts in larger features such as Warner Bros.' Baby Face. But it was in action roles that Wayne excelled, exuding a warm and imposing manliness onscreen to which both men and women could respond.
The music industry during the 1940s was filled with many talented artists who impacted the music industry and the history of rock n’ roll forever. But one of the very well known and talented artists was Buddy Holly. Buddy Holly was the first to pioneer new music genres and progressive music. Charles Hardin Holley (1936-1959) was an American musician and artist whose creative career began in 1956. The family name is correctly spelled “Holley” but his first recording contract from Decca Records in 1956 spelled his last name “Holly” and he kept it that way for the rest of his career (Griggs 1). Holly took a very influential position in the music industry and built an audience for his Rock and Roll music very quickly due to his unique voice and advanced knowledge of music. Buddy Holly is a prime example of a musical pioneer who blended resources from various music genres including a variety of popular genres such as rhythm and blues (RNB), oriental, and African (Schinder and Schwartz 85).
Hank Williams Jr will always be remembered, He made a huge turning point in country music. He started young and seen his dreams and where he wanted to be, He didn't let anyone or anything stop him from getting there. Hank took his own spin on country music, and made it his own. Not following the “trend”, But doing what he wanted. Taking his dad with him , never forgetting that he's one of the reasons he's here.
Johnny cash, the man in black is a country legend, him and the Tennessee two, made a name for themselves in the mid 50's. There orignal songs where gospil, but when trying to get a record deal was turned down for the gospil ,but then played a song Johnny cash wrote. The first hit was "Cry,Cry,Cry", other hits were " i walk the line","folsom Prison blues" , and others such as " man in black"" Hey Porter", and " get rhythm". Johnny cash marride his early wife Vivian Liberto in 1954, and moved to Memphis, Tennessee.His band The Tennessee two consited of Luther Perkins and bass player Marshall Grant. They were known for there sound, people say they had a "boom-chik-a-Boom" sound like a train. Johnny wore dark clothing which got him the name "man in black", and hestarted his performanced with the simple entrance "Hello im Johnny Cash". {wikipedia}
John Brown became a legend of his time. He was a God fearing, yet violent man and slaveholders saw him as evil, fanatic, a murderer, lunatic, liar, and horse thief. To abolitionists, he was noble and courageous. John Brown was born in 1800 and grew up in the wilderness of Ohio. At seventeen, he left home and soon mastered the arts of farming, tanning, and home building.
Throughout his musical career, he earned many titles “Mr. Dynamite” and “The Godfather of Soul” known as the hardest working man in show business. His demeanor at times was often that of a tyrant, generous nature, tolerant, or at times demanding. He was the greatest entertainer during his time. He is known for his performances on stage. The cape act that he uses on stage came from the wrestler Gorgeous Geor...
He had exposure to several different genres growing up in his St. Louis, MO hometown. He heard country from the whites, rhythm & blues (R&B) from mostly blacks, even Latin music. His family environment set him up well for future success while growing up in a middle class home in the middle of the Great Depression of the 1930s. His parents sun...
The Duke takes his place in history. John Wayne, one of America’s greatest actors and directors of all time. His fame and superstardom led to many problems in his career. His image as an icon of American individualism and the frontier spirit has overshadowed his career to such an extent that it is almost impossible for the fans and writers to separate Wayne the legend from Wayne the actor and Wayne the man.
The book "Donnie Brasco" is based on the undercover life of the author, Joseph D. Pistone, an F.B.I agent who penetrated one of New York City's five families in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Joseph D. Pistone served in the FBI for 28 years, including six years of undercover life in the New York Bonanno crime family, where he operated as a jewel thief under the name Donnie Brasco. Due to his undercover work, more than 200 members of the Mafia were put behind bars.
Riley B. King better known as B.B. King was born on September 16th 1925 to a family of sharecropping farmers near a small town named Itta Bena in the Mississippi Delta. King's parents Albert and Nora Ella King separated when he was five years old and shortly after his mother moved to Kilmicheal Mississippi where Riley spent most of his time living with is grandmother. By age seven King was now working the field like a grown man. A couple of years later at the age of nine his mother died. King continued to live with his grandmother after his mother had past away. His grandmother was very religious and he attended church services with her. It was in the church where King begins to take an interest in music. He had dreams of becoming a gospel singer and learned how to play basic notes on the guitar from his preacher. In 1940 King's grandmother died and he had trouble making ends meet and eventually went to live with his father. (The King of Blues)
Louis Armstrong was a very successful jazz artist, trumpet, and cornet player. Although he didn't get a lot of recognition until later and after his musical career he still led the way for many other artists. He influenced many artists including Ella Fitzgerald. Throughout his career Louis Armstrong called himself an entertainer regardless of what others thought of his music and continued to do what he loved most up until his death.
Unique to the United States, the Old West wields a powerful influence on the American imagination that can still be seen in numerous aspects of the nation’s culture, such as clothing lines and movies. Unfortunately, as is the case with most other periods, historic acknowledgement of African Americans’ contributions to the West is still not complete. Only recently, within the last few decades, have American scholars and the film industry earnestly begun to correct this period in regards to African Americans. In 2005, the Idaho Black History Museum (IBHM) in Boise assembled a display that incorporated the black cowboy into it.
By this time, he had switched from cornet to trumpet, and The Armstrong Hot Five and Hot Seven recordings of 1925-28 were how he emerged as the first great jazz solo artist and also by that time, the New Orleans ensemble style was not able to contain the creativity that he gave off such as his brilliant technique, his sophisticated and audacious sense of harmony, his always expressive attack, timbre, and inflections, his gift to create vital melodies, its dramatic, often complex sense of individual design, and his enormous energy and musical genius made these recordings great innovations in jazz (“Louis Armstrong”). His fame began rising and by 1929, he was playing with Carrol Dickerson’s Orchestra while also leading his own band in the same place, Hot Chocolates, with the name of Louis Armstrong and his Stompers (Louis ‘Satchmo’). Here, he sang “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ” which became his first popular hit song and his trumpet playing hit a peak around 1933 which after that his music became less complicated giving it a mature feel compared to his playing in previous years and actually re-recorded some of his songs and ended up with great results (“Louis
At the young age of thirteen, he experienced several tragedies that would affect his life forever and would greatly impact his music later in life. Within a year, his father, his uncle, and his minister all died. He lost every important male influence in his life. After graduating from high school in High Point, he moved to Philadelphia in 1943, where he lived in a small one-room apartment and worked as a laborer in a s...
The first true virtuoso soloist of jazz was Louis Armstrong. He was a dazzling improviser, technically, emotionally, and intellectually. He changed the format of jazz by bringing the soloist to the forefront, and in his recording groups, the "Hot Five" and the "Hot Seven" (Porter 2), demonstrated that jazz improvisation could go far beyond simply ornamenting the melody. He became the first well known male jazz singer, and also set standards for all later jazz singers, by creating scat singing: singing meaningless syllables instead of words, not unlike instrumental improvisation.