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"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation"
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | where was the indian reservation? | 1 | where was the Menominee indian reservation? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
"Smith River Reservation was an Indian reservation on the Smith River, set aside April 9, 1862 by the Department of Indian Affairs to replace the Klamath River Reservation that had been destroyed by the Great Flood of 1862 and as a reservation for the Tolowa people.\n\nCamp Lincoln was built nearby to replace Fort Ter-Waw, which also had been severely damaged in the flood. Camp Lincoln was built to protect the American citizens in the vicinity of Crescent City from the native people. However, it was moved on September 11, 1862, by Major James F. Curtis to a location six miles north of the city in a clearing in a forest of redwoods near the reservation. This was done to protect the reservation Indians from the citizens.\n\nIn September, 1862, over 800 of the native people captured in the Bald Hills War were sent to the Reservation. The garrison was given the additional task of preventing them from escaping and returning to the Bald Hills and Eel River country. However, they were not very successful in that task; hundreds of these native people escaped that Fall. \n \nThe Smith River Reservation was discontinued by act of Congress on July 28, 1868.\n\nSee also\n Klamath River Reservation\n Mendocino Indian Reservation\n Nome Cult Farm\n Nome Lackee Reservation\n Sebastian Indian Reservation\n Tule River Farm\n Fresno Indian Farm\n Kings River Indian Farm\n\nReferences\n\n1862 establishments in California\nFormer Native American populated places in California\nFormer settlements in Del Norte County, California\nAmerican Indian reservations in California\nSmith River Reservation\nFormer American Indian reservations",
"Mendocino Indian Reservation, a former Indian reservation in Mendocino County, one of the early Indian reservations to be established in California by the Federal Government for the resettlement of California Indians. It was established in the spring of 1856, in the vicinity of modern Noyo. Its area was 25,000 acres (100 km2) and its boundary extended north from what is now Simpson Lane at to Abalobadiah Creek and east from the Pacific Ocean to a north–south line passing through the summit of Bald Hill.\n\nHistory\n\nThe area of the reservation was home to Native Americans, most of whom belonged to the Pomo tribe. They were hunter-gatherers who lived along the northern coast of California. In 1855 an exploration party from the Bureau of Indian Affairs visited the area looking for a site on which to establish a reservation and, in the spring of 1856, the Mendocino Indian Reservation was established at Noyo.\n\nYuki, (Ukiah or Yokiah), Wappo, Pomo, Salan Pomo, Southern Pomo(Kianamaras or Gallinomero), Whilkut (Redwood) and others lived on this reservation. \n \nIn the summer of 1857, First Lieutenant Horatio G. Gibson, then serving at the Presidio of San Francisco, was ordered to take Company M, 3rd Regiment of Artillery to establish a military post one and one-half miles north of the Noyo River on the Mendocino Indian Reservation. The official date of the establishment of Fort Bragg was June 11, 1857. Its purpose was to maintain order on the reservation, and subjugate the Indians and reservation lands. \n\nIn January 1859 Gibson and Company M, 3rd Regiment of Artillery left Fort Bragg to be replaced by Company D, 6th Infantry Regiment. They stayed for two years and continued to build up the post.\n\nFollowing the 1858–1859 Wintoon War, the defeated Whilkut people were sent to the Mendocino Indian Reservation. Over the next year they deserted the reservation to return to their homeland in the Bald Hills and the escalating hostilities of the Bald Hills War.\n \nIn June 1862, Federal troops had been withdrawn to the East to fight in the American Civil War, being replaced by Company D, 2nd California Infantry, that was ordered to garrison the post and remained until 1864. That year, following the end of the Bald Hills War, the Indians who resided on the reservation were moved to the Round Valley Indian Reservation. In October the Fort Bragg garrison was loaded aboard the steamer \"Panama\" and completed the evacuation and abandonment of Mendocino County's first military post.\n \nThe Mendocino Indian Reservation was discontinued in March 1866 and the land opened for settlement three years later.\n\nSee also\n Sebastian Indian Reservation\n Nome Cult Farm\n Smith River Reservation\n Tule River Farm\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Mendocino Indian Reservation (California) from www.familysearch.org.\n 1869 map of Mendocino Indian Reservation\n\n1856 establishments in California\nFormer Native American populated places in California\nFormer settlements in Mendocino County, California\nAmerican Indian reservations in California\nFormer American Indian reservations"
] |
[
"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin."
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | when was it established? | 2 | when was the Menominee Indian Reservation established? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | 1961 | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
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"The Local Defence Division was a division of the Admiralty Naval Staff established in 1919 it continued to operate during the early interwar period until 1923 when it was deactivated. It was reestablished at the beginning of world war two in 1939 until 1944 when it was abolished. The staff division was administered by the Director Local Defence who reported to the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (U boat and Trade) during world war two.\n\nHistory\nThe division was established in 1919 to assess the defence capabilities of naval bases and commercial ports and then prioritising them in order to recommend essential improvements so that necessary work could be carried out. It was in operation until 1923 when it was deactivated. At the beginning of the second world war it was reactivated and remained in operation until 1944. It was commanded by the Director Local Defence The division was under the Deputy Chief of the Naval Staff from 1919 to 1920, the Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff until 1923. It was then reporting to Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff (U boats and Trade) during world war two.\n\nReferences\n\nL\nMilitary units and formations established in 1919\nMilitary units and formations disestablished in 1923\nMilitary units and formations established in 1939\nMilitary units and formations disestablished in 1944"
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"Menominee",
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"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961"
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | what was special about it? | 3 | what was special about the Menominee Indian Reservation? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | false | [
"These Are Special Times is a one-off American television special by Canadian singer Celine Dion that was broadcast by CBS on 25 November 1998. The special was a promotion for her first English Holiday album of the same name, These Are Special Times. The special was filmed in front of a live studio audience. It featured Dion (backed by her touring band and a full orchestra) performing holiday music from the album as well as some of her hits. She was also joined by special guests comedic actress and singer Rosie O'Donnell and Italian Tenor Andrea Bocelli. The special also included footage of Dion in her hometown of Charlegmagne, Quebec.\n\nThe special was met with praise and drew an audience of more than sixteen million viewers. Additionally, it received two Emmy Award nominations. It was later released on DVD as part of the Collector's Edition re-release of the These Are Special Times album in 2007.\n\nSet list\n \"The Power of Love\"\n \"Do You Hear What I Hear?\" (duet with Rosie O'Donnell)\n \"O Holy Night\"\n \"Because You Loved Me\" \n \"Let's Talk About Love\" \n \"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face\"\n \"My Heart Will Go On\" \n \"The Prayer\" (duet with Andrea Bocelli)\n \"Ave Maria\" (performed by Andrea Bocelli)\n \"Feliz Navidad\"\n \"These Are the Special Times\"\n\nReferences\n\nCeline Dion\n1998 television specials\nCBS television specials",
"\"No Matter What\" is a song recorded by British singer-songwriter Calum Scott for the special edition of his debut studio album, Only Human. It was released on 19 October 2018 as the album's fifth overall single and the first single from the special edition.\n\nBackground\nScott describes \"No Matter What\" as his \"most personal song\" and the song he is \"most proud of\". The song tells the story of Scott telling his parents he was gay and their reactions of loving him \"no matter what\". Scott said \"It was a song that I always had to write, and a song I never thought I'd be able to share. This song has so much bones behind it and has such a wider discussion, not only about sexuality but about acceptance.\" adding \"This hopefully will be a movement. I want to help people, I want to inspire people, I want to make people more compassionate.\"\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was released on 8 November 2018 on Scott's YouTube channel via Vevo. It was directed by Ozzie Pullin.\n\nCritical reception\nKatrina Rees from CelebMix called the song \"a stunning piano ballad\" with lyrics that are \"raw and extremely personal\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2018 songs\n2018 singles\nCalum Scott songs\nCapitol Records singles\nLGBT-related songs\nSongs written by Toby Gad\nSongs written by Calum Scott"
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"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961",
"what was special about it?",
"The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands"
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | was there ever any problems? | 4 | was there ever any problems with the Menominee Indian Reservation? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
"Guy Héraud (29 October 1920, in Avignon – 28 December 2003) was a French politician and lawyer. He was the candidate of the European Federalist Party in the 1974 French presidential election, where he won only 0.08% of the vote (exactly: 0.07539557%) and last place. His result remains the lowest score ever obtained by a candidate in any French presidential election.\n\nGuy Héraud was also the author of books on federalism. He was an expert on minority issues and problems of European federalism\n\n1920 births\n2003 deaths\nPoliticians from Avignon\nPoliticians of the French Fifth Republic\nStateless nationalism in Europe",
"\"Excelsior\" is one of Sam Loyd's most famous chess problems, originally published in London Era in 1861.\nIn 1867, it participated together with five other problems as a set in an international problem tournament. The motto for the full set was \"Excelsior\" (eng. 'Ever upward'), generally known as the title of the poem \"Excelsior\" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and as that term is very fitting for this particular problem, it is generally associated with it.\n\nBackstory\nLoyd had a friend who was willing to wager that he could always find the piece which delivered the principal mate of a chess problem. Loyd composed this problem as a joke and bet his friend dinner that he could not pick a piece that didn't give mate in the main line (his friend immediately identified the pawn on b2 as being the least likely to deliver mate), and when the problem was published it was with the stipulation that White mates with \"the least likely piece or pawn\".\n\nIt should probably be noted that the first publication, in 1861, is not accompanied by any such stipulation.\n\nSolution\n1. b4!\nThreatening 2.Rf5 any 3.Rf1# or 2.Rd5 any 3.Rd1# (with possible prolonging of both by 2...Rc5 3.bxc5 any 4.R mates). White cannot begin with 1.Rf5 because Black's 1...Rc5 would pin the rook. Now there are multiple possible moves defending only one of the threats and one secondary non-thematical defence: 1...Rxc2 2.Nxc2! a2 3.Rd5 (or Rf5) a1=Q 4.Nxa1 any .\n\n1... Rc5+ 2. bxc5!\nThreatening 3.Rb1#.\n\n2... a2 3. c6! \nAgain with the same threats as on move one, i.e. 4.Rf5 any 5.Rf1# or 4.Rd5 any 5.Rd1#.\n\n3... Bc7 \nBecause both Rd5 and Rf5 are threatened; the alternative moves 3...Bf6 and 3...Bg5 would only defend against one or the other. The given move does defend against Rd5 in the sense that 4.Rd5 Bxg3 5.Rd1+ Be1 6.Rdxe1# takes more than the required five moves, and similarly for 4.Rf5 Bf4.\n\n4. cxb7 any 5. bxa8=Q/B#\nThe mate is delivered with the pawn that starts on b2.\n\nAny problem that features a pawn moving from its starting square to promotion in the course of the solution is now said to demonstrate the Excelsior theme. Nowadays it is most usually shown in helpmates and seriesmovers.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nChess problems\n1861 in chess"
] |
[
"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961",
"what was special about it?",
"The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands",
"was there ever any problems?",
"contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation."
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | were they able to assimilate? | 5 | were the Menominee Indians able to assimilate? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
"Solventogenesis is the biochemical production of solvents (usually acetone and butanol) by Clostridium species. It is the second phase of ABE fermentation.\n\nProcess \nSolventogenic Clostridium species have a biphasic metabolism composed of an acidogenic phase and a solventogenic phase. During acidogenesis, these bacteria are able to convert several carbon sources into organic acids, commonly butyrate and acetate. As acid accumulates, cells begin to assimilate the organic acids to solvents. In Clostridium acetobutylicum, a model solventogenic Clostridium species, a combination of low pH and high undisociated butyrate, referred to as the \"pH-acid effect\", triggers the metabolic shift from acidogenesis to solventogenesis.\n\nProducts \nAcetone, butanol, and ethanol are the most common products of solventogenesis. Some species such as Clostridium beijerinckii, Clostridium puniceum and Clostridium roseum are able to further reduce acetone to isopropanol. Several species are able to produce additional solvents under various culture conditions. For example, glycerol fermentation results in the production of 1,3-propanediol in several species. Acetoin is produced by several species and is further reduced to 2,3-butanediol by Clostridium beijerinckii.\n\nList of Solventogenic Clostridium\n\nReferences \n\nSolvents\nBiochemistry\nClostridia\nClostridium\nFermentation",
"Halothiobacillus is a genus in the Gammaproteobacteria. Both species are obligate aerobic bacteria; they require oxygen to grow. They are also halotolerant; they live in environments with high concentrations of salt or other solutes, but don't require them in order to grow.\n\nThe type species of this genus, Halothiobacillus neapolitanus used to be members of the genus Thiobacillus, before they were reclassified in 2000. A further two former Thiobacillus spp. were also reclassified as Halothiobacillus halophilus and Halothiobacillus hydrothermalis, both of which were obligate halophiles rather than being halotolerant and showed comparatively low 16S rRNA gene identity to Halothiobacillus neapolitanus and so were reclassified to the newly designated genus Guyparkeria in 2017, as Guyparkeria halophila and Guyparkeria hydrothermalis.\n\nEnvironmental importance\nHalothiobacillus spp. and other chemolithoautotrophic organisms play an important role in global carbon and sulfur cycles. They are able to depend entirely on inorganic compounds (CO2 and reduced sulfur) for their carbon and energy needs, but can assimilate some Krebs cycle intermediates during autotrophic growth.\n\nSpecies\n Halothiobacillus kellyi\n Halothiobacillus neapolitanus (basonym: Thiobacillus neapolitanus), the type strain of which is ParkerXT, isolated from decomposing concrete in the sewer outfall of Melbourne, Australia by Cecil David 'Guy' Parker in the 1940s - this strain is now a common model organism for autotrophy research, in particular study of carboxysomes and their role in carbon concentration and maintaining RuBisCO efficiency during autotrophic growth.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Genome page for Halothiobacillus neapolitanus c2 at the Joint Genome Institute\n\nBacteria genera\nHalothiobacillaceae"
] |
[
"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961",
"what was special about it?",
"The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands",
"was there ever any problems?",
"contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation.",
"were they able to assimilate?",
"An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation"
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | were people happy with this? | 6 | were the people happy with the treaty signed by the Menominee Indians? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
"Sam Shaber is an American singer/songwriter from New York City. Her parents were screenwriter David Shaber and artist Alice Shaber, and many of her songs, such as \"Walkin' at Night,\" \"Eldorado,\" and \"Bomb Threat in New Rochelle,\" refer to New York City. Her song \"All of This\", also about New York City, reached #1 on the Quiznos Subs National In-Store Playlists in 2003.\n\nShe published three albums on her own label, Brown Chair Records.\n\nShaber released a pop digital EP called Sassy in 2006.\n\nCurrently, she fronts Brazilian-American rock band The Good People of Planet Earth, and previously she fronted indiepunk band The Happy Problem (albums Head Case (2011) and the happy problem (2008)) and dance-rock band The Bashful (Venture EP, 2009).\n\nShe is currently back in New York City and released a full-length album Head Case with The Happy Problem.\n\nDiscography\n In the Bunker (1997)\n perfecT (1999)\n Sam*pler (2000)\n Eighty Numbered Streets (2002)\n In My Bones (2006)\n Sassy (2006)\n the happy problem (2008) - with The Happy Problem\n Venture (2009) - with The Bashful\n Head Case (2011) - with The Happy Problem\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nAmerican women singers\nSongwriters from New York (state)\nAmerican folk musicians\nSingers from New York City\nCornell University alumni\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)\n21st-century American women",
"This is a list of the produced films and TV series by Los Angeles-based production company Happy Madison Productions, which was established in 1999 by actor/comedian Adam Sandler.\n\nFilms\n\nCritical reception\n\nHappy Madison's films have, for the most part, received overwhelmingly negative reviews, while some drama films (Reign Over Me and Funny People) received mixed-to-positive from critics, with Sandler's performance garnered critical praise. The production company has put out four films considered to be some of the worst ever made, including two that have received a 0% score from Rotten Tomatoes.\n\nTV series\n Rules of Engagement, 2007–13, with Game Six Productions, CBS Television Studios, and Sony Pictures Television\n The Gong Show with Dave Attell, 2008, with Sony Pictures Television\n Nick Swardson's Pretend Time, 2010–11, with Culver Entertainment\n Breaking In, 2011–12, with Adam F. Goldberg Productions and Sony Pictures Television\n The Goldbergs, 2013–present, with Adam F. Goldberg Productions, Doug Robinson Productions (Season 5 - Present), and Sony Pictures Television\n Imaginary Mary, 2017, with Adam F. Goldberg Productions, ABC Studios, and Sony Pictures Television\n Schooled, 2019–20, with Adam F. Goldberg Productions, Marc Firek Productions, Doug Robinson Productions, ABC Studios, and Sony Pictures Television\n\nReferences\n\nHappy Madison\nH\nHappy Madison Productions\nHappy Madison Productions films"
] |
[
"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961",
"what was special about it?",
"The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands",
"was there ever any problems?",
"contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation.",
"were they able to assimilate?",
"An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation",
"were people happy with this?",
"the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state."
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 7 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article besides the Menominee Indians treaty? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Menominee",
"Menominee Indian Reservation",
"where was the indian reservation?",
"The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin.",
"when was it established?",
"1961",
"what was special about it?",
"The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands",
"was there ever any problems?",
"contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation.",
"were they able to assimilate?",
"An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation",
"were people happy with this?",
"the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975."
] | C_c6b5ea0a406c4defacea4f71d74b5341_0 | did it last? | 8 | did the Menominee Indians reservation last? | Menominee | The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975. The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854 in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned 432 square miles (1,120 km2) on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community. After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of 10.22 acres (41,400 m2) in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km2), while Menominee County's land area is 357.960 sq mi (927.11 km2). The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census. The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Menominee (; meaning "Menominee People", also spelled Menomini, derived from the Ojibwe language word for "Wild Rice People"; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people", in the Menominee language) are a federally recognized nation of Native Americans, with a reservation in Wisconsin. Their historic territory originally included an estimated in present-day Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The tribe currently has about 8,700 members.
Federal recognition of the tribe was terminated in the 1960s under policy of the time which stressed assimilation. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), to protect their treaty hunting and fishing rights. The Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims had drawn opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The U.S. Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.
The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution establishing an elected government. Their first government under it took over tribal government and administration from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1979.
Overview
The Menominee are part of the Algonquian language family of North America, made up of several tribes now located around the Great Lakes and many other tribes based along the Atlantic coast. They are one of the historical tribes of present-day upper Michigan and Wisconsin; they occupied a territory of about in the period of European colonization. They are believed to have been well-settled in that territory for more than 1,000 years. By some accounts, they are descended from the Old Copper Culture people and other indigenous peoples who had been in this area for 10,000 years.
Menominee oral history states that they have always been here and believe they are Kiash Matchitiwuk (kee ahsh mah che te wuck) which is "Ancient Ones". Their reservation is located 60 miles west of the site of their Creation, according to their tradition. They arose where the Menominee River enters Green Bay of Lake Michigan, where the city of Marinette, Wisconsin has since developed.
Their name for themselves is Mamaceqtaw, meaning "the people". The name "Menominee" is not their autonym. It was adopted by Europeans from the Ojibwe people, another Algonquian tribe whom they encountered first as they moved west and who told them of the Menominee. The Ojibwe name for the tribe was manoominii, meaning "wild rice people", as they cultivated wild rice as one of their most important food staples.
Historically, the Menominee were known to be a peaceful, friendly and welcoming nation, who had a reputation for getting along with other tribes. When the Oneota culture arose in southern Wisconsin between AD 800 and 900, the Menominee shared the forests and waters with them.
The Menominee are a Northeastern Woodlands tribe. They were initially encountered by European explorers in Wisconsin in the mid-17th century during the colonial era, and had extended interaction with them during later periods in North America. During this period they lived in numerous villages which the French visited for fur trading. The anthropologist James Mooney in 1928 estimated that the tribe's number in 1650 was 3,000 persons.
The early French explorers and traders referred to the people as "folles avoines" (wild oats), referring to the wild rice which they cultivated and gathered as one of their staple foods. The Menominee have traditionally subsisted on a wide variety of plants and animals, with wild rice and sturgeon being two of the most important. Wild rice has a special importance to the tribe as their staple grain, while the sturgeon has a mythological importance and is often referred to as the "father" of the Menominee. Feasts are still held annually at which each of these is served.
Menominee customs are quite similar to those of the Chippewa (Ojibwa), another Algonquian people. Their language has a closer affinity to those of the Fox and Kickapoo tribes. All four spoke Anishinaabe languages, part of the Algonquian family.
The five principal Menominee clans are the Bear, the Eagle, the Wolf, the Crane, and the Moose. Each has traditional responsibilities within the tribe. With a patrilineal kinship system, traditional Menominee believe that children derive their social status from their fathers, and are born "into" their father's clan. Members of the same clan are considered relatives, so must choose marriage partners from outside their clan. Ethnologist James Mooney wrote an article on the Menominee which appeared in Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), incorrectly reporting that their descent and inheritance proceeds through the female line. Such as a matrilineal kinship system is common among many other Native American peoples, including other Algonquian tribes.
Culture
Traditional Menominee spiritual culture includes rites of passage for youth at puberty. Ceremonies involve fasting for multiple days and living in a small isolated wigwam. As part of this transition, youth meet individually with Elders for interpretation of their dreams, and to receive information about what adult responsibilities they will begin to take on following their rites of passage.
Ethnobotany
Traditional Menominee diets include local foods such as Allium tricoccum (ramps, or wild garlic). Boiled, sliced potatoes of Sagittaria cuneata are traditionally strung together and dried for winter use. Uvularia grandiflora (bellwort) has historically been used to treat pain and swellings. Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, ssp obtusifolium (rabbit tobacco) is also used medicinally. Taenidia integerrima (a member of the parsely family) is taken as a root infusion for pulmonary troubles, and as chew, the steeped root, for 'bronchial affections'; it is also used as a companion herb in other remedies because of the good smell. They use Abies balsamea using the inner bark as a seasoner for medicines, taking an infusion of the inner bark for chest pain, and using the liquid balsam pressed from the trunk for colds and pulmonary troubles. They also use the inner bark as a poultice for unspecified illnesses. They also apply gum from plant blisters to sores.
History
The tribe originally occupied a large territory of extending from Wisconsin to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Historic references include one by Father Frederic Baraga, a missionary priest in Michigan, who in his 1878 dictionary wrote:
Mishinimakinago; pl.-g.—This name is given to some strange Indians (according to the sayings of the Otchipwes [Ojibwe]), who are rowing through the woods, and who are sometimes heard shooting, but never seen. And from this word, the name of the village of Mackinac, or Michillimackinac, is derived.
Maehkaenah is the Menominee word for turtle. In his The Indian Tribes of North America (1952), John Reed Swanton recorded under the "Wisconsin" section: "Menominee," a band named "Misi'nimäk Kimiko Wini'niwuk, 'Michilimackinac People,' near the old fort at Mackinac, Mich." Michillimackinac is also spelled as Mishinimakinago, Mǐshǐma‛kǐnung, Mi-shi-ne-macki naw-go, Missilimakinak, Teiodondoraghie.
The Menominee are descendants of the Late Woodland Indians who inhabited the lands once occupied by Hopewell Indians, the earliest human inhabitants of the Lake Michigan region. As the Hopewell culture declined, circa 800 A.D., the Lake Michigan region eventually became home to Late Woodland Indians.
Early fur traders, coureur-de-bois, and explorers from France encountered their descendants: the Menominee, Chippewa (Ojibwa), Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Miami. It is believed that the French explorer Jean Nicolet was the first non-Native American to reach Lake Michigan in 1634 or 1638.
First European encounter
In 1634, the Menominee and Ho-Chunk people (along with a band of Potawatomi who had recently moved into Wisconsin) witnessed the French explorer Jean Nicolet's approach and landing. Red Banks, near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin, later developed in this area. Nicolet, looking for a Northwest Passage to China, hoped to find and impress the Chinese. As the canoe approached the shore, Nicolet put on a silk Chinese ceremonial robe, stood up in the middle of the canoe and shot off two pistols.
Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), a French Catholic clergyman, professor, historian, author and explorer, kept a detailed journal of his travels through Wisconsin and Louisiana. In 1721 he came upon the Menominee, whom he referred to as Malhomines ("peuples d'avoines" or (Wild Oat Indians), which the French had adapted from an Ojibwe term:
After we had advanced five or six leagues, we found ourselves abreast of a little island, which lies near the western side of the bay, and which concealed from our view, the mouth of a river, on which stands the village of the Malhomines Indians, called by our French "peuples d'avoines" or Wild Oat Indians, probably from their living chiefly on this sort of grain. The whole nation consists only of this village, and that too not very numerous. 'Tis really great pity, they being the finest and handsomest men in all Canada. They are even of a larger stature than the Potawatomi. I have been assured that they had the same original and nearly the same languages with the Noquets, and the Indians at the Falls.
19th century
Initially neutral during the War of 1812, the Menominee later became allied with the British and Canadians, whom they helped defeat American forces trying to recapture Fort Mackinac in the Battle of Mackinac Island. During the ensuing decades, the Menominee were pressured by encroachment of new European-American settlers in the area. Settlers first arrived in Michigan, where lumbering on the Upper Peninsula and resource extraction attracted workers. By mid-century, encroachment by new settlers was increasing. In the 1820s, the Menominee were approached by representatives of the Christianized Stockbridge-Munsee Indians from New York to share or cede some of their land for their use.
The Menominee gradually sold much of their lands in Michigan and Wisconsin to the U.S. government through seven treaties from 1821 to 1848, first ceding their lands in Michigan. The US government wanted to move them to the far west in the period when Wisconsin was organizing for statehood, to extinguish all Native American land claims. Chief Oshkosh went to look at the proposed site on the Crow River and rejected the offered land, saying their current land was better for hunting and game. The Menominee retained lands near the Wolf River in what became their current reservation. The tribe originated in the Wisconsin and are living in their traditional homelands.
Menominee Indian Reservation
The Menominee Indian Reservation is located in northeastern Wisconsin. For the most part, it is conterminous with Menominee County and the town of Menominee, which were established after termination of the tribe in 1961 under contemporary federal policy whose goal was assimilation. The tribe regained its federally recognized status and reservation in 1975.
The reservation was created in a treaty with the United States signed on May 12, 1854, in which the Menominee relinquished all claims to the lands held by them under previous treaties, and were assigned on the Wolf River in present-day Wisconsin. An additional treaty, which they signed on February 11, 1856, carved out the southwestern corner of this area to create a separate reservation for the Stockbridge and Lenape (Munsee) tribes, who had reached the area as refugees from New York state. The latter two tribes have the federally recognized joint Stockbridge-Munsee Community.
After the tribe had regained federal recognition in 1973, it essentially restored the reservation to its historic boundaries in 1975. Many small pockets of territory within the county (and its geographically equivalent town) are not considered as part of the reservation. These amount to 1.14% of the county's area, so the reservation is essentially 98.86% of the county's area. The largest of these pockets is in the western part of the community of Keshena, Wisconsin. The reservation includes a plot of off-reservation trust land of in Winnebago County, Wisconsin to the south, west of the city of Oshkosh. The reservation's total land area is , while Menominee County's land area is .
The small non-reservation parts of the county are more densely populated than the reservation, holding 1,337 (29.3%) of the county's 4,562 total population, as opposed to the reservation's 3,225 (70.7%) population, as of the 2000 census.
The most populous communities are Legend Lake and Keshena. Since the late 20th century, the members of the reservation have operated a number of gambling facilities in these communities as a source of revenue. They speak English as well as their traditional Menominee language, one of the Algonquian languages. Current population of the tribe is about 8,700.
Communities
Keshena (most, population 1,262)
Legend Lake (most, population 1,525)
Middle Village (part, population 281)
Neopit (most, population 690)
Zoar (most, population 98)
Conflict over logging
The Menominee have traditionally practiced logging in a sustainable manner. In 1905, a tornado swept through the reservation, downing a massive amount of timber. Because the Menominee-owned sawmills could not harvest all the downed timber before it decomposed, the United States Forest Service became involved in managing their forest. Despite the desire of the tribe and Senator Robert M. La Follette, Sr. for sustainable yield policy, the Forest Service conducted clear-cutting on reservation lands until 1926, cutting 70 percent of the salable timber.
The Department of the Interior regained control of the territory, as it holds the reservation in trust for the Menominee. During the next dozen years, it reduced the cutting of salable timber to 30 percent, which allowed the forest to regenerate. In 1934, the Menominee filed suit in the United States Court of Claims against the Forest Service, saying that its policy had heavily damaged their resource. The court agreed and settled the claim finally in 1952, awarding the Menominee $8.5 million.
20th-century termination era
The Menominee were among the Native Americans who participated as soldiers in World War II with other United States citizens.
During the 1950s, federal Indian policy envisioned termination of the "special relationship" between the United States government and those tribes considered "ready for assimilation" to mainstream culture. The Menominee were identified for termination, which would end their status as a sovereign nation. At the time, the Klamath people in Oregon were the only other tribal group identified for termination. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) believed the Menominee were sufficiently economically self-reliant on their timber industry to be successful independent of federal assistance and oversight. Before termination, they were one of the wealthiest American Indian tribes.
In 1954, Congress passed a law which phased out the Menominee reservation, effectively terminating its tribal status on April 30, 1961. Commonly held tribal property was transferred to a corporation, Menominee Enterprises, Inc. (MEI). It had a complicated structure and two trusts, one of which, First Wisconsin Trust Company, was appointed by the BIA. First Wisconsin Trust Company always voted its shares as a block, and essentially could control the management operations of MEI.
At the request of the Menominee, the state organized the former reservation as a new county, so they could maintain some coherence. The tribe was expected to provide county government functions but it became a colony of the state.
The change resulted in diminished standards of living for the members of the tribe; officials had to close the hospital and some schools in order to cover costs of the conversion: to provide their own services or contract for them as a county. Menominee County was the poorest and least populated Wisconsin county during this time, and termination adversely affected the region. Tribal crafts and produce alone could not sustain the community. As the tax base lacked industry, the Menominee could not fund basic services. MEI funds, which totaled $10 million in 1954, dwindled to $300,000 by 1964. Struggling to manage financially, the white-dominated MEI proposed in 1967 to raise money by selling off former tribal lands to non-Native Americans, which resulted in a fierce backlash among the Menominee.
It was a period of Indian activism, and community members began an organizing campaign to regain political sovereignty as the Menominee Tribe. Activists included Ada Deer, an organizer who would later become an advocate for Native Americans at the federal level as Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs (1993–1997). In 1970 the activists formed a group called the Determination of Rights and Unity for Menominee Stockholders (DRUMS). They blocked the proposed sale of tribal land by MEI to non-Indian developers, and successfully gained control of the MEI board of directors. They also persuaded Congress to restore their status as a federally recognized sovereign tribe by legislation.
At the same time, President Richard Nixon encouraged a federal policy to increase self-government among Indian tribes, in addition to increasing education opportunities and religious protection. He signed the bill for federal recognition of the Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin on December 22, 1973. The sovereign tribe started the work of reorganizing the reservation, which they re-established in 1975. Tribal members wrote and ratified a tribal constitution in 1976, and elected a new tribal government, which took over from BIA officials in 1979.
Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968)
During the period of termination, when the Menominee individually were subject to state law, in 1963 three members of the tribe were charged with violating Wisconsin's hunting and fishing laws on what had formerly been their reservation land for more than 100 years. The tribal members were acquitted. When the state appealed the decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that the Menominee tribe no longer had hunting and fishing rights due to the termination act of Congress in 1954.
Due to the state court's ruling, the tribe sued the United States for compensation for the value of the hunting and fishing rights in the U.S. Court of Claims, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968). The Court ruled that tribal members still had hunting and fishing rights, and that Congress had not abrogated those rights. The opposite rulings by the state and federal courts brought the issue to the United States Supreme Court.
In 1968 the Supreme Court held that the tribe retained its hunting and fishing rights under the treaties involved, and the rights were not lost after federal recognition was ended by the Menominee Termination Act, as Congress had not clearly removed those rights in its legislation. This has been a landmark case in Indian law, helping preserve Native American hunting and fishing rights.
Government
The tribe operates according to a written constitution. It elects a tribal council and chairman.
The Menominee developed the College of Menominee Nation in 1993 and it was accredited in 1998. It includes a Sustainable Development Institute. Its goal is education to promote their ethic for living in balance on the land. It is one of a number of tribal colleges and universities that have been developed since the early 1970s, and one of two in Wisconsin.
Current tribal activities
The nation has a notable forestry resource and ably manages a timber program. In an 1870 assessment of their lands, which totaled roughly , they counted 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber. Today that has increased to 1.7 billion board feet. In the intervening years, they have harvested more than 2.25 billion board feet. In 1994, the Menominee became the first forest management enterprise in the United States certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC.org).
Since June 5, 1987, the tribe has owned and operated a Las Vegas-style gaming casino, associated with bingo games and a hotel. The complex provides employment to numerous Menominee; approximately 79 percent of the Menominee Casino-Bingo-Hotel's 500 employees are ethnic Menominee or are spouses of Menominee.
Notable Menominee
Apesanahkwat – actor who starred in Babylon 5 and films
Chrystos – a Two-Spirit-identified poet
Alaqua Cox - actress, Hawkeye
Ada Deer – activist and Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, 1993–1997
Billie Frechette – lover of 1930s serial bank robber John Dillinger
Mitchell Oshkenaniew – advocate for sovereignty and recognition by federal government
Chief Oshkosh (1795–1858) – chief of Menominee during period of land cessions and restriction to reservation within Wisconsin
Sheila Tousey – actress, Thunderheart (1995)
Ingrid Washinawatok – Co-founder, Fund for the Four Directions, indigenous activist; killed in 1999 in Colombia by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
Notes
References
Beck, David R. M. (2005). The Struggle for Self-Determination: History of the Menominee Indians Since 1854. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Boatman, John (1998). Wisconsin American Indian History and Culture. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing.
Davis, Thomas (2000). Sustaining the Forest, the People, and the Spirit. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York.
Loew, Patty (2001). Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal. Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
Nichols, Phebe Jewell (Mrs. Angus F. Lookaround). Oshkosh The Brave: Chief of the Menominees, and His Family. Menominee Indian Reservation, 1954.
Further reading
Nancy Lurie (1972), "Menominee Termination: From Reservation to Colony," Human Organization, 31: 257–269
Nancy Lurie (1987), "Menominee Termination and Restoration," in Donald L. Fixico, ed., An Anthology of Western Great Lakes Indians History (Milwaukee: American Indian Studies Program): 439–478
External links
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin
Menominee Language Lessons
The Menominee Clans Story at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Perey, "The Menominee Myth of the Flood – in Relation to Life Today", Anthropology.net
"Treaties between the United States and the Menominee", Menominee website
"Menominee", Indian Country, Milwaukee Public Museum
Mitchell A. Dodge papers on the Menominee Indian Tribe, MSS 1538 at L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University
American Indian reservations in Wisconsin
Native American tribes in Wisconsin
Menominee County, Wisconsin
Algonquian peoples
Great Lakes tribes
Algonquian ethnonyms
Native American tribes in Michigan | false | [
"I Know What You Did Last Summer is a 1997 American slasher film based on the 1973 novel.\n\nI Know What You Did Last Summer may also refer to:\n\nFranchise\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (novel), a 1973 suspense novel for young adults by Lois Duncan\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (franchise)\nI Still Know What You Did Last Summer, a 1998 slasher film and a sequel to the 1997 film\nI'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer, a 2006 horror film released straight to DVD and the third installment in the series\nI Know What You Did Last Summer (TV series), a 2021 Amazon Prime TV series\n\nOther uses\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (Supernatural), an episode of the TV series Supernatural\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (The Vampire Diaries), an episode of the TV series The Vampire Diaries\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\" (Scream), an episode of the TV series Scream\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer (song)\", a 2015 song by Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello\n\"I Know What You Did Last Summer\", a 2015 song by Jacob Whitesides featuring Kelly Rowland\n\nSee also\nI Know What You'll Do Next Summer, a third-season episode of the mystery series Veronica Mars",
"Elections to Peterborough City Council took place on 7 May 2021. 23 of the 60 seats were contested. The election was held alongside the elections for the Cambridgeshire Police and Crime Commissioner and Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.\n\nCurrent political makeup\n Conservative: 13 defences (14 other seats)\n Labour and Co-op: 3 defences (14 other seats)\n Lib Dem: 3 defences (7 other seats)\n Werrington First: 1 defence (2 other seats)\n Liberal: 1 defence (0 other seats)\n Green 0 defences (2 other seats)\n\nSummary\n\nWard results\n(* indicates sitting councillor)\n\nBarnack\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2016.\n\nBretton\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. Green (5.7% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nCentral\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (5.1% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nDogsthorpe\n\nThe incumbent, Chris Ash (Liberal Party), is not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019. Veterans and People's Party (5.1% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nEast\n\nThe incumbent, Azher Iqbal (CON) was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nEye, Thorney & Newborough\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (14.8% in 2019) and SDP (7.9% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nFletton & Stanground\n\nThe incumbent, James Lillis (Lib Dem), was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (16.0% in 2019) did not contest this time, although the previous candidate stood as an independent.\n\nFletton & Woodston\n\nOne vacant seat is up for election, alongside the incumbent.\n\nGlinton & Castor\n\nThe incumbent was outgoing Council Leader John Holdich (CON). This seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nGunthorpe\n\nThe incumbent was Darren Fower, elected as a Lib Dem, but sitting as Labour. He did not seek re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (9.3% in 2019) and Green (3.6% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nHampton Vale\n\nThe incumbent David Seaton (CON), was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019. Green (5.4% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nHargate & Hempsted\n\nThis was a vacant seat due to the death of the sitting Conservative councillor. This seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nNorth\n\nThe incumbent Mohammed Nadeem (CON), was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (9.9% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nOrton Longueville\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (16.7% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nOrton Waterville\n\nThe incumbent Kim Aitken (CON), was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nPark\n\nThe incumbent was Labour group leader. This seat was last contested in 2019. Green (5.8% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nPaston & Walton\n\nThe incumbent was the Liberal Democrat group leader. This seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (15.5% in 2019) and Green (4.5% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nRavensthorpe\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (12.7% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nStanground South\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019. UKIP (17.8% in 2019) did not contest this time.\n\nWerrington\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nWest\n\nThis seat was last contested in 2019.\n\nWittering\n\nThe incumbent Diane Lamb (CON), was not seeking re-election. This seat was last contested in 2016.\n\nReferences\n\n2021\nPeterborough\n2020s in Cambridgeshire"
] |
[
"The Clark Sisters",
"The early years"
] | C_96db9ee80c2d4824af3913a3902a8892_1 | Did the clark sisters make music? | 1 | Did the clark sisters make music during their early years? | The Clark Sisters | The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. A few years later, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who would then go on to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. In 1973, the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has A Lot To Give, on their uncle's local label Billesse Records. The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents The Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. It was not until the early 1980s that The Clark Sisters began to become more widely known. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living In Vain. The first live recording by The Clark Sisters spent an entire year at number one on Billboard's Gospel Music chart. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Hi ya" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is The Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in black churches across the country. Their next release You Brought the Sunshine would prove to be a monster hit via the title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," the song became a hit in church houses and on dance floors, including New York's Studio 54. "Sunshine" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sounds of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. This album continues to display Twinkie's signature blend of scripture with unprecedented vocal and musical arrangements on biblically based songs like "Psalms 31." The album's other songs include the sincere prayer found within the lyrics of both "Center of Thy Will" and "Endow Me," featuring a young but already vocally mature Karen, as well as "Overdose of the Holy Ghost", showcasing Dorinda's vocal dexterity. The disco-inspired "He Keeps Me Company" is noted for its bubbly syncopation. The sisters delivered another progressive effort in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It And Claim It" and the politically charged "World." Though its success was overshadowed by the previous hit "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. CANNOTANSWER | They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s | The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise "Niecy" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include "Is My Living in Vain", "Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)", "I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me", "A Praying Spirit", "Nothing to Lose, All to Gain", "Endow Me", "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)", "Pure Gold", "Expect Your Miracle", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, "You Brought the Sunshine". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.
History
Early years
The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created "the Clark Sisters" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time.
The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is the Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.
Mainstream success (1981-1984)
Their next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.
The sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It, Claim It" and the politically charged "World". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed "Hallelujah" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.
Denise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)
In 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single "Time Out". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of "Jesus Is a Love Song", "There Is a Balm in Gilead", and "Pray for the USA", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were "Smile, God Loves You", "I Am Blessed", and the funky "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars".
In 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like "The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day", "Take Me Higher", "For the Love of the People", "Computers Rule the World", and the original studio version of "Jesus Forevermore".
In 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
In 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic "Expect Your Miracle" (now titled "Miracle") and a remake of "Jesus Is the Best Thing". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with "Work to Do". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.
Solo careers (1995-2006)
Following their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.
Karen delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.
Dorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.
Jacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track "Blessing Me". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, "My Season", followed by singles "Cover Me" and "Shout". In February 2020, she released a single "Feel Good", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.
The Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.
Live...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)
On July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track "Blessed & Highly Favored" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of "Blessed & Highly Favored," sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit "You Brought the Sunshine" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Following the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.
In 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.
Lifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)
On November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.
The Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single "Victory" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, "His Love".
Artistry
"The Clark Sound"
Since early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as "the Clark Sound". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or "squalls". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.
The Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, "Is My Living in Vain", at her service.
Group timeline and structure
Influence and covers
The Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
as lead artist
as a featured artist
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Awards
BET Awards
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.
Dove Awards
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.
Stellar Awards
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.
References
External links
Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page
The Clark Sisters Official Message Board
Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace
Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365
Stellar Awards
Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)
Grammy Award winners
American gospel musical groups
Singers from Detroit
American gospel singers
Sibling quartets
African-American musical groups
Musical groups from Detroit
African-American Christians
American Pentecostals
Members of the Church of God in Christ
American girl groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in Michigan
African-American women musicians | false | [
"The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel is a 2020 American biographical film about gospel group The Clark Sisters. Directed by Christine Swanson, and co-written by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker, the film stars Christina Bell, Kierra Sheard, Sheléa Frazier, Raven Goodwin, and Angela Birchett. It premiered on Lifetime on April 11, 2020.\n\nPlot \nThe film centers on the formation of gospel group The Clark Sisters, the daughters and pupils of gospel singer and devout Christian Mattie Moss Clark. The plot follows their journey from their hometown of Detroit to becoming the highest-selling gospel group in music history.\n\nCast\n\nProduction \nOn March 27, 2019, it was announced that Queen Latifah's Flavor Unit Productions had greenlit the film to be released in 2020. Queen Latifah, Mary J. Blige, Missy Elliott, Loretha Jones and Holly Carter served as executive producers for the film.\n\nThe Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel is the first authorized biopic about the group. The producers noted in an interview at the 2020 TCA press tour that estranged sister Denise Clark-Bradford was invited to be a part of the film but did not state the extent of her involvement.\n\nThe film was directed by Christine Swanson and written by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker, who wrote the story. Kierra Sheard portrayed her real-life mother, Karen Clark Sheard.\n\nSoundtrack\n\nNotes\n All songs produced by Donald Lawrence.\n Other songs performed in the film but not included on the soundtrack are \"Hallelujah,\" \"Is My Living in Vain,\" \"Miracle\" (a reworked version of The Clark Sisters' earlier \"Expect Your Miracle\" on their album of the same name), and the Karen Clark Sheard-penned \"Blessed & Highly Favored.\"\n\nCharts\nAlbum chart usages for BillboardGospel\n\nThe soundtrack album debuted at number eight on the Billboard Top Gospel Albums chart, where it remained in its second week. In its third week, the album slipped to number 23.\n\nRelease \nThe film premiered on Lifetime on April 11, 2020.\n\nReception\n\nCritical reception \nThe Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel premiere was the most-watched film on Lifetime in four years.\n\nThe film received mixed critical reception. In a review for rogerebert.com, Nell Minow rated the film 3.5/4 stars, calling Ellis's performance \"mesmerizing\" and the music \"a gorgeous, spirit-lifting celestial chorus.\" Joelle Monique of The A.V. Club rated the film a C+ and wrote in the review, \"...it feels like a chorus of Clark sisters, each with their interpretation of events, presented in a way that wouldn’t offend anyone person in the group.\" Writing for The Root, Panama Jackson stated in a more positive review: \"It’s both heartwarming and endearing, while not skirting any of the issues that plagued their ultimately triumphant and still ongoing journey: domestic violence, gender inequality in the church, interpersonal issues, medical issues, mental health, life, etc.\"\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nThe Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel on Lifetime\n\n2020 biographical drama films\n2020 television films\nAmerican films\nLifetime (TV network) films\nAfrican-American biographical dramas\nFilms set in Detroit\n2020 films\nBiographical films about singers",
"The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise \"Niecy\" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita \"Twinkie\" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include \"Is My Living in Vain\", \"Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)\", \"I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me\", \"A Praying Spirit\", \"Nothing to Lose, All to Gain\", \"Endow Me\", \"Jesus Is a Love Song\", \"Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)\", \"Pure Gold\", \"Expect Your Miracle\", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, \"You Brought the Sunshine\". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly years\nThe Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created \"the Clark Sisters\" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time. \n\nThe following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative \"Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)\" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on \"Speak Lord\" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on \"Now Is the Time\". Another hit from this release, \"Expect Your Miracle\", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.\n\nMainstream success (1981-1984)\nTheir next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's \"Master Blaster (Jammin')\", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. \"You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)\" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.\n\nThe sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included \"Name It, Claim It\" and the politically charged \"World\". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, \"He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars\" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed \"Hallelujah\" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.\n\nDenise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)\nIn 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single \"Time Out\". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of \"Jesus Is a Love Song\", \"There Is a Balm in Gilead\", and \"Pray for the USA\", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were \"Smile, God Loves You\", \"I Am Blessed\", and the funky \"He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars\".\n\nIn 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like \"The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day\", \"Take Me Higher\", \"For the Love of the People\", \"Computers Rule the World\", and the original studio version of \"Jesus Forevermore\".\n\nIn 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.\n\nIn 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic \"Expect Your Miracle\" (now titled \"Miracle\") and a remake of \"Jesus Is the Best Thing\". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with \"Work to Do\". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.\n\nSolo careers (1995-2006)\nFollowing their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.\n\nKaren delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.\n\nDorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.\n\nJacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track \"Blessing Me\". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, \"My Season\", followed by singles \"Cover Me\" and \"Shout\". In February 2020, she released a single \"Feel Good\", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.\n\nThe Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.\n\nLive...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)\nOn July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track \"Blessed & Highly Favored\" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of \"Blessed & Highly Favored,\" sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit \"You Brought the Sunshine\" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.\n\nFollowing the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.\n\nIn 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.\n\nLifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)\nOn November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.\n\nThe Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.\n\nOn October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single \"Victory\" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, \"His Love\".\n\nArtistry\n\n\"The Clark Sound\"\nSince early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as \"the Clark Sound\". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or \"squalls\". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.\n\nThe Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, \"Is My Living in Vain\", at her service.\n\nGroup timeline and structure\n\nInfluence and covers\nThe Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.\n\nDiscography\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nSingles\nas lead artist\n\nas a featured artist\n\nOther charted songs\n\nOther appearances\n\nAwards\n\nBET Awards\n\nThe BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.\n\nDove Awards\n\nThe Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.\n\nGrammy Awards\n\nThe Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.\n\nNAACP Image Awards\n\nThe NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.\n\nSoul Train Awards\nThe Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.\n\nStellar Awards\nThe Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page\n The Clark Sisters Official Message Board\n Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace\n Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365\n Stellar Awards\n Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)\n\nGrammy Award winners\nAmerican gospel musical groups\nSingers from Detroit\nAmerican gospel singers\nSibling quartets\nAfrican-American musical groups\nMusical groups from Detroit\nAfrican-American Christians\nAmerican Pentecostals\nMembers of the Church of God in Christ\nAmerican girl groups\nMusical groups established in 1966\n1966 establishments in Michigan\nAfrican-American women musicians"
] |
[
"The Clark Sisters",
"The early years",
"Did the clark sisters make music?",
"They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s"
] | C_96db9ee80c2d4824af3913a3902a8892_1 | Did they get any rewards or awards? | 2 | Did the clark sisters get any rewards or awards for their music? | The Clark Sisters | The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. A few years later, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who would then go on to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. In 1973, the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has A Lot To Give, on their uncle's local label Billesse Records. The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents The Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. It was not until the early 1980s that The Clark Sisters began to become more widely known. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living In Vain. The first live recording by The Clark Sisters spent an entire year at number one on Billboard's Gospel Music chart. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Hi ya" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is The Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in black churches across the country. Their next release You Brought the Sunshine would prove to be a monster hit via the title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," the song became a hit in church houses and on dance floors, including New York's Studio 54. "Sunshine" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sounds of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. This album continues to display Twinkie's signature blend of scripture with unprecedented vocal and musical arrangements on biblically based songs like "Psalms 31." The album's other songs include the sincere prayer found within the lyrics of both "Center of Thy Will" and "Endow Me," featuring a young but already vocally mature Karen, as well as "Overdose of the Holy Ghost", showcasing Dorinda's vocal dexterity. The disco-inspired "He Keeps Me Company" is noted for its bubbly syncopation. The sisters delivered another progressive effort in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It And Claim It" and the politically charged "World." Though its success was overshadowed by the previous hit "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. CANNOTANSWER | "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. | The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise "Niecy" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include "Is My Living in Vain", "Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)", "I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me", "A Praying Spirit", "Nothing to Lose, All to Gain", "Endow Me", "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)", "Pure Gold", "Expect Your Miracle", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, "You Brought the Sunshine". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.
History
Early years
The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created "the Clark Sisters" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time.
The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is the Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.
Mainstream success (1981-1984)
Their next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.
The sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It, Claim It" and the politically charged "World". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed "Hallelujah" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.
Denise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)
In 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single "Time Out". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of "Jesus Is a Love Song", "There Is a Balm in Gilead", and "Pray for the USA", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were "Smile, God Loves You", "I Am Blessed", and the funky "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars".
In 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like "The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day", "Take Me Higher", "For the Love of the People", "Computers Rule the World", and the original studio version of "Jesus Forevermore".
In 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
In 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic "Expect Your Miracle" (now titled "Miracle") and a remake of "Jesus Is the Best Thing". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with "Work to Do". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.
Solo careers (1995-2006)
Following their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.
Karen delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.
Dorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.
Jacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track "Blessing Me". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, "My Season", followed by singles "Cover Me" and "Shout". In February 2020, she released a single "Feel Good", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.
The Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.
Live...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)
On July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track "Blessed & Highly Favored" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of "Blessed & Highly Favored," sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit "You Brought the Sunshine" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Following the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.
In 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.
Lifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)
On November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.
The Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single "Victory" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, "His Love".
Artistry
"The Clark Sound"
Since early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as "the Clark Sound". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or "squalls". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.
The Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, "Is My Living in Vain", at her service.
Group timeline and structure
Influence and covers
The Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
as lead artist
as a featured artist
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Awards
BET Awards
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.
Dove Awards
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.
Stellar Awards
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.
References
External links
Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page
The Clark Sisters Official Message Board
Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace
Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365
Stellar Awards
Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)
Grammy Award winners
American gospel musical groups
Singers from Detroit
American gospel singers
Sibling quartets
African-American musical groups
Musical groups from Detroit
African-American Christians
American Pentecostals
Members of the Church of God in Christ
American girl groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in Michigan
African-American women musicians | false | [
"The Longitude Act 1714 was an Act of Parliament of Great Britain passed in July 1714 at the end of the reign of Queen Anne. It established the Board of Longitude and offered monetary rewards (Longitude rewards) for anyone who could find a simple and practical method for the precise determination of a ship's longitude. The Act of 1714 was followed by a series of other Longitude Acts that revised or replaced the original.\n\nBackground\n\nAs transoceanic travel grew in significance, so did the importance of accurate and reliable navigation at sea. Scientists and navigators had been working on the problem of measuring longitude for a long time. While determining latitude was relatively easy, early ocean navigators had to rely on dead reckoning to find longitude. This was particularly inaccurate on long voyages without sight of land and could sometimes lead to tragedy, as during the Scilly naval disaster of 1707 which claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 sailors. This brought the problem of measuring longitude at sea into sharp focus once more. Following the Merchants and Seamen Petition, which called for finding an adequate solution and was presented to Westminster Palace in May 1714, the Longitude Act was passed in July 1714.\n\nFor details on many of the efforts towards determining the longitude, see History of longitude.\n\nThe rewards\n\nThe Longitude Act offered a series of rewards, rather than a single prize. The rewards increased with the accuracy achieved: £10,000 (worth over £ in ) for anyone who could find a practical way of determining longitude at sea with an error of not greater than one degree of longitude (equates to at the equator). The reward was to be increased to £15,000 if the error was not greater than 40 minutes, and further enhanced to £20,000 if it was not greater than half a degree. Other rewards were on offer for those who presented methods that worked within 80 geographical miles of the coast (being the most treacherous part of voyages) and for those with promising ideas who needed help to bring them to readiness for trial. Many rewards were paid out over the 114 years of the Board of Longitude's existence. John Harrison received more money than any other individual, with several rewards from the 1730s–1750s, and £10,000 in 1765.\n\nSubsequent Longitude Acts offered different rewards. That of 1767 held out £5,000 for improvements to Tobias Mayer's lunar tables and that of 1774 halved the amount offered for any method or instrument achieving the degrees of precision outlined in the original Act (i.e. £5,000 for a degree, £7,500 for of a degree or £10,000 for a degree). The Longitude Act 1818, which completely revised the composition and remit of the Board of Longitude, again changed the rewards, by now offered for improvements to navigation in general rather than simply for finding longitude. In addition, the Act outlined rewards for navigating the North West Passage, again on a sliding scale from £20,000 for reaching the Pacific through a north-west passage to £5,000 for reaching 110 degrees west or 89 degrees north and £1,000 for reaching 83 degrees north. In 1820 £5,000 was paid to the officers and crews of and under this Act.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Alexi Baker (July 2013), Longitude Acts, Board of Longitude project, University of Cambridge Digital Library\n Image of the original act from the Parliamentary Archives\n\nGreat Britain Acts of Parliament 1714\nHistory of navigation\nChallenge awards\n1714 establishments in Great Britain",
"Vivo Class (formerly Vivo Miles) is a private company based in London, UK that sells a web-based rewards system to schools. Founded in 2007, it was first used at Westminster Academy in London.\n\nIn August 2014, Vivo Miles was rebranded as Vivo Class for teachers.\n\nRewards in Schools\n\nRewards systems are implemented in schools to praise students for positive actions, stimulating a voluntary and progressive improvement in their behaviour and increasing their motivation towards the achievement of academic objectives. Vivo Miles is a system of extrinsic rewards based on the principles of the Token economy and positive reinforcement. There has long been a debate about the use of extrinsic rewards and the effect that they may, or may not have on pupils' motivation.\n\nMechanism\nVivo Class uses a simulated economic system where the currency are electronic points called Vivos (pronounced Vee-vos). School teachers award their students Vivos for their achievements and positive actions according to the reward criteria set by their tutors and school management. Every school customises the rewards platform in line with their own goals based upon their academic initiatives, objectives and ethos. Teachers have access to an online platform where they can manage the number of points or Vivos awarded to every student.\n\nEach pupil gets a private online profile where they can check how many points they have earned and know the actions they were rewarded for as well as the teacher or member of the school staff that awarded those points. Students can redeem their points in an online catalogue where they can choose from a range of products approved by the school management and partly selected by them in consensus.\n\nFinancial Learning\nOne intention is that pupils are introduced to the concepts of economy and personal finance in a context that emulates the socio-political system in which they are immersed which helps prepare them for real-life situations such as the planning and control of their own finances.\n\nStudents have a currency (Vivos points) and a plastic card similar to a bank account card. Students decide how to manage the points they have earned. They can save their points and earn interest, accumulate them, or trade them for products. Students can only carry out transactions with the card within the Vivo platform. Students can also choose to donate their points to designated charities or to partner schools in developing countries, all at the discretion of the school leadership team.\n\nParental involvement\nVivo Class has a platform for parents to monitor their child's activity online and be aware of their achievements and the way they have chosen to spend their points.\n\nFinancial Value\nFor schools based in the United Kingdom, each Vivo point has an approximate value of 1 penny, in Great British Sterling. This can be seen in their online shop, where any voucher costs the same number of Vivo points as the voucher's worth in pence.\n\nAwards and nominations\nIn 2010 Vivo Miles was the winner at BETT Awards in the Leadership and Management Solutions category.\n\nVivo Miles was shortlisted for the EducationInvestor Awards 2011, for \"Use of Educational Technology\".\n\nSee also\n Behavior management\n Classroom management\n Every Child Matters\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links \n Vivo Class\n\nBritish companies established in 2007\nBehavior modification\nSchool and classroom behaviour\nEducation companies established in 2007\nReward websites"
] |
[
"The Clark Sisters",
"The early years",
"Did the clark sisters make music?",
"They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s",
"Did they get any rewards or awards?",
"\"You Brought The Sunshine\", the album received a Grammy nomination."
] | C_96db9ee80c2d4824af3913a3902a8892_1 | Did they have any other albums? | 3 | Besides "You Brought The Sunshine",did the clark sisters have any other albums? | The Clark Sisters | The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. A few years later, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who would then go on to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. In 1973, the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has A Lot To Give, on their uncle's local label Billesse Records. The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents The Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. It was not until the early 1980s that The Clark Sisters began to become more widely known. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living In Vain. The first live recording by The Clark Sisters spent an entire year at number one on Billboard's Gospel Music chart. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Hi ya" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is The Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in black churches across the country. Their next release You Brought the Sunshine would prove to be a monster hit via the title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," the song became a hit in church houses and on dance floors, including New York's Studio 54. "Sunshine" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sounds of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. This album continues to display Twinkie's signature blend of scripture with unprecedented vocal and musical arrangements on biblically based songs like "Psalms 31." The album's other songs include the sincere prayer found within the lyrics of both "Center of Thy Will" and "Endow Me," featuring a young but already vocally mature Karen, as well as "Overdose of the Holy Ghost", showcasing Dorinda's vocal dexterity. The disco-inspired "He Keeps Me Company" is noted for its bubbly syncopation. The sisters delivered another progressive effort in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It And Claim It" and the politically charged "World." Though its success was overshadowed by the previous hit "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. CANNOTANSWER | the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. | The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise "Niecy" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include "Is My Living in Vain", "Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)", "I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me", "A Praying Spirit", "Nothing to Lose, All to Gain", "Endow Me", "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)", "Pure Gold", "Expect Your Miracle", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, "You Brought the Sunshine". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.
History
Early years
The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created "the Clark Sisters" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time.
The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is the Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.
Mainstream success (1981-1984)
Their next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.
The sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It, Claim It" and the politically charged "World". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed "Hallelujah" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.
Denise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)
In 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single "Time Out". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of "Jesus Is a Love Song", "There Is a Balm in Gilead", and "Pray for the USA", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were "Smile, God Loves You", "I Am Blessed", and the funky "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars".
In 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like "The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day", "Take Me Higher", "For the Love of the People", "Computers Rule the World", and the original studio version of "Jesus Forevermore".
In 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
In 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic "Expect Your Miracle" (now titled "Miracle") and a remake of "Jesus Is the Best Thing". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with "Work to Do". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.
Solo careers (1995-2006)
Following their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.
Karen delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.
Dorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.
Jacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track "Blessing Me". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, "My Season", followed by singles "Cover Me" and "Shout". In February 2020, she released a single "Feel Good", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.
The Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.
Live...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)
On July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track "Blessed & Highly Favored" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of "Blessed & Highly Favored," sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit "You Brought the Sunshine" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Following the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.
In 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.
Lifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)
On November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.
The Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single "Victory" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, "His Love".
Artistry
"The Clark Sound"
Since early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as "the Clark Sound". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or "squalls". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.
The Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, "Is My Living in Vain", at her service.
Group timeline and structure
Influence and covers
The Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
as lead artist
as a featured artist
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Awards
BET Awards
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.
Dove Awards
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.
Stellar Awards
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.
References
External links
Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page
The Clark Sisters Official Message Board
Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace
Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365
Stellar Awards
Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)
Grammy Award winners
American gospel musical groups
Singers from Detroit
American gospel singers
Sibling quartets
African-American musical groups
Musical groups from Detroit
African-American Christians
American Pentecostals
Members of the Church of God in Christ
American girl groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in Michigan
African-American women musicians | false | [
"The discography of Mallu Magalhães, a Brazilian Folk singer, consists of two studio albums, one live albums, five singles as a lead artist, one collaborations with Marcelo Camelo and one video albums.\n\nIn 2008 she released her first eponymous album and in 2009 she released her second album, also self-titled.\n\nShe already has five singles released, and the most famous is Tchubaruba.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilations\n\nVideo albums\n\nNotes\n These albums did not reach any of the charts in Brazil.\n\nSingles\n\nAs lead artist\n\nOther appearances\n\nNotes\n These albums did not reach any of the charts in Brazil.\n\nMusic videos \n J1 (2008)\n Tchubaruba (2008)\n O Preço da Flor (2009)\n Vanguart (2009)\n Shine Yellow (2009)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMallu Magalhães's official website\nMallu Magalhães's official MySpace\n\nFolk music discographies\nDiscography\nDiscographies of Brazilian artists\nLatin music discographies",
"This is the discography of the hard rock band Magnum, which is headed by vocalist Bob Catley and guitarist/songwriter Tony Clarkin. Originally formed around 1972 they released their first single in 1975 (a cover of Sweets for My Sweet that did not chart) and their first album Kingdom of Madness in 1978. They continued recording and releasing albums until 1995 when they split. However, they re-formed in 2001 and have released albums every few years since. Many compilations and live albums were released in the gap, as well as Bob and Tony forming Hard Rain before re-forming Magnum with long-time keyboard player Mark Stanway.\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nThere have also been many other compilations across various labels.\n\nCharted singles\n\nVideos and DVDs\n\nReferences\n\nDiscographies of British artists\nRock music group discographies"
] |
[
"The Clark Sisters",
"The early years",
"Did the clark sisters make music?",
"They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s",
"Did they get any rewards or awards?",
"\"You Brought The Sunshine\", the album received a Grammy nomination.",
"Did they have any other albums?",
"the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose."
] | C_96db9ee80c2d4824af3913a3902a8892_1 | Did they have any death in their family? | 4 | Did the clark sisters have any death in their family? | The Clark Sisters | The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. A few years later, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who would then go on to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. In 1973, the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has A Lot To Give, on their uncle's local label Billesse Records. The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents The Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. It was not until the early 1980s that The Clark Sisters began to become more widely known. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living In Vain. The first live recording by The Clark Sisters spent an entire year at number one on Billboard's Gospel Music chart. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Hi ya" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is The Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in black churches across the country. Their next release You Brought the Sunshine would prove to be a monster hit via the title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," the song became a hit in church houses and on dance floors, including New York's Studio 54. "Sunshine" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sounds of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. This album continues to display Twinkie's signature blend of scripture with unprecedented vocal and musical arrangements on biblically based songs like "Psalms 31." The album's other songs include the sincere prayer found within the lyrics of both "Center of Thy Will" and "Endow Me," featuring a young but already vocally mature Karen, as well as "Overdose of the Holy Ghost", showcasing Dorinda's vocal dexterity. The disco-inspired "He Keeps Me Company" is noted for its bubbly syncopation. The sisters delivered another progressive effort in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It And Claim It" and the politically charged "World." Though its success was overshadowed by the previous hit "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise "Niecy" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include "Is My Living in Vain", "Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)", "I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me", "A Praying Spirit", "Nothing to Lose, All to Gain", "Endow Me", "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)", "Pure Gold", "Expect Your Miracle", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, "You Brought the Sunshine". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.
History
Early years
The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created "the Clark Sisters" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time.
The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is the Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.
Mainstream success (1981-1984)
Their next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.
The sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It, Claim It" and the politically charged "World". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed "Hallelujah" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.
Denise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)
In 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single "Time Out". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of "Jesus Is a Love Song", "There Is a Balm in Gilead", and "Pray for the USA", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were "Smile, God Loves You", "I Am Blessed", and the funky "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars".
In 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like "The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day", "Take Me Higher", "For the Love of the People", "Computers Rule the World", and the original studio version of "Jesus Forevermore".
In 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
In 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic "Expect Your Miracle" (now titled "Miracle") and a remake of "Jesus Is the Best Thing". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with "Work to Do". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.
Solo careers (1995-2006)
Following their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.
Karen delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.
Dorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.
Jacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track "Blessing Me". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, "My Season", followed by singles "Cover Me" and "Shout". In February 2020, she released a single "Feel Good", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.
The Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.
Live...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)
On July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track "Blessed & Highly Favored" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of "Blessed & Highly Favored," sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit "You Brought the Sunshine" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Following the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.
In 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.
Lifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)
On November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.
The Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single "Victory" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, "His Love".
Artistry
"The Clark Sound"
Since early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as "the Clark Sound". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or "squalls". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.
The Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, "Is My Living in Vain", at her service.
Group timeline and structure
Influence and covers
The Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
as lead artist
as a featured artist
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Awards
BET Awards
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.
Dove Awards
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.
Stellar Awards
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.
References
External links
Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page
The Clark Sisters Official Message Board
Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace
Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365
Stellar Awards
Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)
Grammy Award winners
American gospel musical groups
Singers from Detroit
American gospel singers
Sibling quartets
African-American musical groups
Musical groups from Detroit
African-American Christians
American Pentecostals
Members of the Church of God in Christ
American girl groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in Michigan
African-American women musicians | false | [
"Folole Muliaga ( 1963 – 29 May 2007) was a Samoan schoolteacher living in Mangere, Auckland, New Zealand. She was terminally ill with obesity-related heart and lung disease and using a home oxygen machine. She died less than three hours after the electricity supply from state-owned Mercury Energy was disconnected to her house due to an outstanding balance. The circumstances of her death brought the case to national attention in New Zealand and internationally.\n\nFamily background\nMuliaga; her husband, Lopaavea Muliaga, and four children, Ietitaia (aged 20 at the time of her death), Desmond (18), Eden (7), had moved to New Zealand in 2000, looking for a better life. A further child was born in New Zealand, and was aged five at the time of her death. She had a University diploma in early childhood education, and was a pre-school teacher.\n\nIllness and death\nOn May 11, Muliaga was sent home from Auckland's Middlemore Hospital suffering from terminal cardiomyopathy, after being in hospital since late March. Doctors believed that she did not have much longer to live. She had first been admitted to hospital in 2002, with acute respiratory failure, related to her \"gross obesity\". On previous occasions she had used traditional Samoan health care instead of prescribed medication. Her doctors say that when she was discharged, she was not so ill that the oxygen machine was critical to her survival. Over the past five years she had been told repeatedly that her diet and lifestyle needed to change for her health to improve. The doctor who treated her the first time she was admitted to hospital believed that she only had one to three years, the normal prognosis for patients in her condition. He also stated that for people with such severe obesity (Muliaga weighed up to 210 kg), it is difficult to lose such weight permanently as it is a \"disease to gain as much weight as she did\". In conjunction with the oxygen concentrator, she had used a BiPAP machine.\n\nOn May 29 a contractor for VirCom EMS was sent by Mercury Energy to the Muliaga's house to disconnect the electricity supply. There was an outstanding balance of NZ$168.40. The family had made two payments totaling $106.90 in the last month on their balance, but according to statements later made by Mercury, the outstanding balance was accruing faster than the family were paying it off. The $168 did not include the current month's charges of $136. The family believed they had to June 13 to pay the total amount. In early May, Mr Muliaga had contacted Mercury Energy while his wife was in hospital to discuss the overdue account. But due to the Privacy Act, they would only discuss it with the account holder, who was Mrs Muliaga.\n\nUp until she qualified as a teacher, the TB and Chest Association, paid $35 of the electricity bill. While she had been studying, her husband had supported the family on an income of $24,000 per year. They had used high-interest (30%), short-term loans to get needed money. Once Muliaga had qualified as a teacher, the combined income rose to $60,000. However, when she became ill and had to be hospitalised in early 2007 the family's income was once again reduced to $24 000 per year.\n\nAccording to the eldest son, the contractor arrived at about 11 a.m. and the family made him aware of Muliaga's medical condition. The family have stated they told the contractor that the oxygen supply needed electricity to continue, but he responded that he was \"just doing my job\". The contractor said that he saw a medical tube to her nose, but it was not connected to any equipment. He claims that he was not made aware of any need for the oxygen supply. According to the Herald on Sunday newspaper, the police investigation into the death confirmed the contractor's story.\n\nThe telephone service to the house had already been disconnected. Although Telecom would not go into specifics of the Muliaga's case, they did state that in general they would \"talk to customers and offer budget advice and refer them to budgeting services\". This lack of a working telephone in the house meant it was too late to save Muliaga when emergency services were finally contacted. Also compounding the issue was that Muliaga told her sons not to worry, and instructed them not to call an ambulance. When she passed out at 1:30 p.m., the two sons decided to ring but they had to go to an elderly neighbour. Muliaga's husband stated that \"as you know Samoans are very respectful of imposing on others, especially if the neighbours aren't Samoan — they're Papalagi [European]\".\n\nIt was her nephew, Brenden Sheehan, who brought the case to national attention. He said he went to the media the night of the death in the hopes of finding an after-hours number for Mercury Energy to get the electricity supply reconnected. That same evening, a Victim Support worker also telephoned Mercury requesting that the electricity be reconnected. A supervisor at the call-centre said that \"she may have passed away in the last couple of days but… I know it's been hard but it's irrelevant\" and that the electricity would not be reconnected until further payments were made.\n\nFuneral\nHer funeral at the Samoan Assemblies of God in New Zealand Incorporated Headquarters (Samani Pulepule Convention Centre) was attended by about 1000 people. Mourners included Prime Minister Helen Clark and Manukau Mayor Barry Curtis, and executives from Mercury Energy, including then chief executive Doug Heffernan. Her casket donated by Sovereign Industries, and Mercury Energy provided a cheque for $10000 to the cost of the funeral. A large group of executives from the company and its parent visited the Muliaga's home on June 1 to offer their condolences. This was the same day that the Prime Minister also visited.\n\nAftermath\nThe actions of the police, who conducted an investigation into the death, upset the family. The family claimed that police showed had a \"lack of cultural awareness\" and had \"institutionalised racism\", conducting the interviews in English, the second language of the family. These allegations were denied by the police, who said when they spoke to the two eldest sons, the interview was conducted by a Samoan officer, and the men chose to speak in English.\n\nThe police announced 12 June that there was no evidence to justify any charge against the company, contractor or staff member involved.\n\nThe Coroner ruled Muliaga died of natural causes relating to being morbidly obese - but the stress of having her power disconnected and not being able to use her oxygen machine contributed to her death. He criticized Mercury and Manukau DHB for their part in her death. \n\nThe contractor was placed on stress leave and received counselling. The family have stated they do not want any disciplinary or criminal actions taken against him and invited him to the funeral. They are also against the police investigation into the matter, believing that the \"public interest is not served by a criminal investigation to blame any individual for this tragedy\", instead believing any investigation should be into the electricity companies and their practices.\n\nMercury Energy sent a letter to its 300,000 customers on 16 June, signed by Carole Durbin, chairwoman of Mighty River Power, stating that \"Mercury Energy and Mighty River Power deeply regret what occurred\".\n\nThe Electricity Commission (now the Electricity Authority) issued new guidelines in July 2007 stating consumers who are dependent on electricity for critical medical support should state so to their electricity retailer and are not to be disconnected for non-payment. However, it also recommended that medically dependent consumers should regularly test their back-up batteries and have an emergency plan in case of a prolonged blackout .\n\nReferences\n\n1960s births\n2007 deaths\nNew Zealand schoolteachers\nNew Zealand people of Samoan descent\nPeople from the Auckland Region\nDeaths from respiratory failure\nDate of birth missing\nPlace of birth missing",
"A deathbed confession is an admittance or confession when someone is nearing death, or on their \"death bed\". This confession may help alleviate any guilt, regrets, secrets, or sins the dying person may have had in their life. These confessions can occur because the dying want to live the last moments of their life free of any secrets they have been holding in for a portion - or entirety - of their life. Or, if religious, the person may perhaps believe they will be forgiven by a higher power before they die, allowing them entrance to a better place, such as Heaven, after death. A deathbed confession can be given to anyone, but a family member is usually with their loved one during this time. Doctors and nurses may also hear a deathbed confession because they are often present in a person’s last moments.\n\nThese confessions can range from a confession of sins that have been committed to crimes that have been committed or witnessed. Often, these confessions are made to clear the dying’s conscience. A common type of confession is either religious or spiritually based. On the death bed, the dying will confess sins or mistakes they have made in their lifetime, and ask for forgiveness, so that they may move on to the afterlife according to their religion. Different religions have different protocols for the deathbed confession, but all religions seek to provide relief for the dying. People may also confess their feelings for another person while dying. This can relieve the dying of the internal struggle with hiding how they actually feel for someone. These emotions can range from hatred to love, and everything in between.\n\nMany confessions have involved the admittance of a crime that the dying has committed, which obviously cannot be prosecuted once the perpetrator has died. On the other hand, someone can confess that they have knowledge of or witnessed a crime that has been committed: This kind of confession, known as a \"dying declaration\", can sometimes be admissible in court to get a conviction, depending on the circumstances of the statement. Another use for a deathbed confession in the criminal justice system is to re-open a case that may have gone cold to get closure for the victim's family or friends, even if prosecution is not an option.\n\nReligion\n\nBuddhism \nMany terminal patients look to religion or spirituality to bring comfort in their remaining time. Buddhism has been showing up in palliative care more frequently to help patients cope with death and come to peace with the end of their life. Buddhism is a philosophically based religion mainly focused on suffering: why it exists, what causes it, and how to escape it. The belief is that ignorance, anger, and attachment cause inevitable suffering to the body. Buddhism also holds that life and the body is temporary and it is a privilege used to look for enlightenment. Discussing any issues in a patient's life related to suffering can bring inner peace and relief. Buddhism does not seek to manipulate a dying patient into following a religion or forcing dying confessions, but rather to become a thought-provoking way to talk about their suffering and clear themselves of attachment to their body, to prepare for death. Talking about suffering may bring up confessions or secrets that can be released before death to journey towards enlightenment.\n\nCatholicism \nCatholic Christians believe that sins must be confessed to a priest before death. The priest,acting in persona Christi, can then absolve the dying of their sins, so that they can be properly prepared for the afterlife. The admittance of sin is important to the dying individual, because this frees them from sin, purifying the soul for a happy afterlife with God in Heaven. These final confessions, sometimes along with the Last Rites, are often performed by a hospital priest or chaplain when a patient's quality of life suddenly declines.\n\nThe Lutheran Church teaches that a sincere deathbed confession can result in the salvation of the penitent.\n\nHinduism \nHinduism is largely centered around the idea of karma and reincarnation. Good karma allows the soul to move up on the incarnation hierarchy to a better life. Bad karma does the opposite; it causes the soul to have to pay for its actions in this life or the previous one. The next incarnation is less fortunate until the bad karma is cancelled out by good deeds or suffering. This heavy emphasis on karma leads many Hindus to carry out many final acts to improve their chances in the next life and reduce end of life suffering. The main ways Hindus try to increase their karma before moving onto the next life is by apologizing to people, resolving any issues with family or friends, confessions with a guru or other religious figure, religious ceremonies, sacrifices or repentance. Performing all, or some, of these actions allows the patient to think about God, while they pass and prepare for the next life.\n\nJudaism \n\nThe Talmud teaches that \"if one falls sick and his life is in danger, he is told: 'Make confession, for all who are sentenced to death make confession.'\" Masechet Semachot adds, \"When someone is approaching death, we tell him to confess before he dies, adding that on the one hand, many people confessed and did not die, whilst on the other, there are many who did not confess and died, and there are many who walk in the street and confess; because on the merit of confession you will live.\"\n\nNative American spirituality \nMany tribes of Native Americans have similar views regarding death. Death is seen as a natural transition, and a part of life. The world is seen as an interconnected web, and a person is an extension of the web, as well as all other life. After death, it is believed by many that the components of your person is returned to the web of life. Making this transition smoothly is important to both the dying, and the loved ones left behind after they have passed on. Ensuring that there are no secrets remaining is vital to a transition back to the web of life.\n\nLaw\n\nUnited States\n\nA deathbed confession can be admissible evidence in court under the right circumstances. If someone confesses knowledge of a crime and then dies or their condition worsens, the law does not consider the statement to be hearsay and can be used in a criminal trial.\n\nExamples\n\nEmma Alice Smith\nMany decades after the 1926 disappearance of a 16-year-old girl named Emma Alice Smith in Sussex, in 2009, a man named David Wright claimed his deceased great-aunt Lillian Smith, a sister of Emma Alice Smith, had told her niece that in the 1950s she had taken a death bed confession from a man claiming that he had murdered Emma Alice on her way to the train station in Horam. The case was reopened, not to find a killer, but to find the body of the young girl to give her a proper burial and give her relatives some closure. In 2011, Sussex Police concluded that despite the alleged death-bed confession, Emma Alice Smith had not been murdered but had in fact eloped with a married man named Thomas Wills. Police concluded the pair had probably ended up in the Republic of Ireland.\n\nMargaret Gibson\nOn October 21, 1964, 70-year-old retired actress Margaret Gibson suffered a heart attack, and then confessed to the February 1, 1922 murder of film director William Desmond Taylor. \n\nGibson was never mentioned during the investigation and no surviving documentation refers to any association between Taylor and her after 1914. All of the police files and physical evidence relating to Taylor's murder disappeared by 1940, and aside from circumstantial evidence no confirmation of Gibson's involvement in it has since emerged. However, Gibson's reported confession does not conflict with the known historical record.\n\nSee also \nDeathbed conversion\nDying declaration\nList of last words\n\nReferences\n\nLegal aspects of death\nReligion and death\nReligious practices\nLast words"
] |
[
"The Clark Sisters",
"The early years",
"Did the clark sisters make music?",
"They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s",
"Did they get any rewards or awards?",
"\"You Brought The Sunshine\", the album received a Grammy nomination.",
"Did they have any other albums?",
"the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose.",
"Did they have any death in their family?",
"I don't know."
] | C_96db9ee80c2d4824af3913a3902a8892_1 | How many songs hit the billboard? | 5 | How many of the songs the clark sisters released hit the billboard? | The Clark Sisters | The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. They each began singing at an early age, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. A few years later, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who would then go on to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. In 1973, the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has A Lot To Give, on their uncle's local label Billesse Records. The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents The Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose. It was not until the early 1980s that The Clark Sisters began to become more widely known. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living In Vain. The first live recording by The Clark Sisters spent an entire year at number one on Billboard's Gospel Music chart. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Hi ya" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is The Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in black churches across the country. Their next release You Brought the Sunshine would prove to be a monster hit via the title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')," the song became a hit in church houses and on dance floors, including New York's Studio 54. "Sunshine" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sounds of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. This album continues to display Twinkie's signature blend of scripture with unprecedented vocal and musical arrangements on biblically based songs like "Psalms 31." The album's other songs include the sincere prayer found within the lyrics of both "Center of Thy Will" and "Endow Me," featuring a young but already vocally mature Karen, as well as "Overdose of the Holy Ghost", showcasing Dorinda's vocal dexterity. The disco-inspired "He Keeps Me Company" is noted for its bubbly syncopation. The sisters delivered another progressive effort in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It And Claim It" and the politically charged "World." Though its success was overshadowed by the previous hit "You Brought The Sunshine", the album received a Grammy nomination. CANNOTANSWER | the song peaked at #16 on the Black Singles chart, #27 on the Club Play Charts, and #80 on the Hot R&B Charts driving the album to Gold sales. | The Clark Sisters are an American gospel vocal group consisting of five sisters: Jacky Clark Chisholm (born 1948), Denise "Niecy" Clark-Bradford (born 1953), Elbernita "Twinkie" Clark (born 1954), Dorinda Clark-Cole (born 1957), and Karen Clark Sheard (born 1960). The Clark Sisters are the daughters of gospel musician and choral director Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. They are credited for helping to bring gospel music to the mainstream and are considered pioneers of contemporary gospel. Their biggest hits include "Is My Living in Vain", "Praise the Lord (Hallelujah)", "I Can Do All Things Through Christ That Strengthens Me", "A Praying Spirit", "Nothing to Lose, All to Gain", "Endow Me", "Jesus Is a Love Song", "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)", "Pure Gold", "Expect Your Miracle", and their biggest, mainstream crossover hit, "You Brought the Sunshine". As a group, the Clark Sisters have won three Grammy Awards and are the highest-selling female gospel group in history. In 2020, it was announced that the Clark Sisters would be honored with the James Cleveland Lifetime Achievement Award at the 35th Annual Stellar Awards.
History
Early years
The Clark Sisters were born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, to gospel choir director and musician Dr. Mattie Moss Clark. Dr. Clark was married twice: her first marriage in 1945 to Leo H. Cullum, Sr. produced two children, Leo, Jr. and Jacqueline (Jacky). After her divorce, she met and later married Pastor Elbert Clark in 1952. This marriage produced four daughters: Denise, Elbernita (Twinkie), Dorinda, and Karen. They each began singing at an early age in the choir at their father's Church of God in Christ, and by the late 1960s they were all performing together in church services, usually singing songs written and arranged by their mother. Shortly after the Clarks' divorce in 1973, Dr. Clark formally created "the Clark Sisters" and the sisters recorded their first album, Jesus Has a Lot to Give, on their uncle (their mother's younger brother) Bill Moss' local label Billesse Records. The first television appearance of the Clark Sisters was on TV Gospel Time.
The following year, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark Presents the Clark Sisters was released and people around Detroit began to take notice of the group. The Clark Sisters signed to Sound of Gospel Records in 1974. Under this association, the group released albums such as Unworthy, Count It All Joy, and He Gave Me Nothing to Lose, which hit the top 20 of the Billboard Spiritual LPs chart. By this point, Dr. Clark had turned over control of the group to Twinkie, who continued to write, arrange, conduct, and produce all of the Clark Sisters' recordings. Their popularity soared with the release of the live recording Is My Living in Vain, in 1980. Their debut live recording was first ranked on the 1981 Billboard Spiritual Albums year-end chart at number 21, before topping the year-end Spiritual Albums chart of 1982. Opening with the bluesy title track, each sister vocally declares that their dedication to Christ is not a useless effort. The innovative "Ha-Ya (Eternal Life)" was funky enough to find its way into a Tonex-produced track over two decades later. Karen Clark's lead on "Speak Lord" expresses deep faith while the call to worship is raised on "Now Is the Time". Another hit from this release, "Expect Your Miracle", is still a staple in African American churches across the country.
Mainstream success (1981-1984)
Their next release, You Brought the Sunshine (1981), became successful due to its title track. Reminiscent of Stevie Wonder's "Master Blaster (Jammin')", the song became a hit in churches and on dance floors across the country, including New York's Studio 54. "You Brought the Sunshine (Into My Life)" was picked up from its original independent gospel record label Sound of Gospel and distributed by both Westbound Records and Elektra Records. In 1983, the song peaked at number 16 on Billboard Black Singles, number 27 on Dance Club Songs and in 2020 – the Live: One Last Time (2007) recording – hit number 11 on the Hot Gospel Songs chart. The album was also a commercial success, peaking at number nine on the US Top Gospel Albums chart and also appeared on both the 1983 and 1984 year-end charts at number two and 25 respectively. Furthermore, Billboard ranked The Clark Sisters as the number-four Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1982 and number-one Top Gospel Albums Artist of 1983.
The sisters delivered another album in 1982, Sincerely, which included "Name It, Claim It" and the politically charged "World". Though its success was overshadowed by You Brought the Sunshine, the sisters received their first Grammy Award nomination for Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group for the album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Shortly after winning the Grammy nomination, the Clark Sisters won the NAACP Image Award for best gospel group for 1983. After receiving a second Grammy nomination in the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group category for the song, "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars" – later included on the album Heart & Soul (1986) – the sisters were invited to perform live on the following 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985, alongside their mother, where they performed "Hallelujah" as part of a medley with the year's fellow gospel nominees.
Denise's departure and subsequent projects (1986-1994)
In 1986, after a four-year gap between releases, the sisters Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen (sister Denise left the group earlier that year) continued to release music, signing with Rejoice Records, a division of Word. This new deal yielded the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul, featuring the mainstream single "Time Out". This project made a top-five debut on Billboard's Gospel Charts and garnered the group a Dove Award. It featured the original versions of "Jesus Is a Love Song", "There Is a Balm in Gilead", and "Pray for the USA", all of which have been re-recorded several times. Although not pictured, Denise had contributed to the album before her departure but was later removed from the album. The music took on a more contemporary sound with programmed drums and synthesizers. Also included on this album were "Smile, God Loves You", "I Am Blessed", and the funky "He'll Turn Your Scars into Stars".
In 1988, The Clark Sisters released their Billboard chart-topping and critically acclaimed album Conqueror. It featured a bolder, more intense sound, with synthesizers, drum machines, and more funk-oriented beats. Conqueror quickly became a fan favorite with hits like "The Darkest Hour Is Just Before the Day", "Take Me Higher", "For the Love of the People", "Computers Rule the World", and the original studio version of "Jesus Forevermore".
In 1989, The Clark Sisters released their live album, Bringing It Back Home, recorded in their home town of Detroit. It was the last recording from The Clark Sisters on Word Records' Rejoice imprint and the last group album with Twinkie just before the launch of her solo career. The album included both previous hits and new material. It also featured guest appearances from Rance Allen and backing choir vocals from the Michigan State Choir under the direction of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark.
In 1994, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Dorinda, and Karen) released their last studio album of the decade, Miracle, which was the first album recorded without the songwriting and vocals of sister Twinkie. Produced by BeBe Winans and Michael J. Powell, this disc featured a commercialized version of the Clark Sisters classic "Expect Your Miracle" (now titled "Miracle") and a remake of "Jesus Is the Best Thing". Dorinda made her songwriting debut on a Clark Sisters recording with "Work to Do". The album, although it fared well in sales, did not match the success of previous albums due to the Clark Sisters not being able to tour and promote the project due to the illness of their mother, Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, who died in September 1994 from diabetes complications.
Solo careers (1995-2006)
Following their last Word Records release, Twinkie resumed her calling as a minister and her solo career. She had previously released two solo albums under the Sound of Gospel Record label: 1979's Praise Belongs to God and 1981's Ye Shall Receive Power. In 1992 she recorded her independent solo album Comin' Home. She re-appeared in 1996 with a pair of albums to her credit: the solo studio release The Masterpiece for Ben Tankard's Tribute Records label and the live project Twinkie Clark-Terrell Presents the Florida A&M University Gospel Choir. She later released the following albums: Twinkie Clark & Friends: Live in Charlotte in 2002, Home Once Again: Live in Detroit in 2004, With Humility in 2011, Live & Unplugged in 2015, and with her nephew Larry Clark (her sister Denise's oldest son) The Generations in 2020.
Karen delivered her solo debut Finally Karen in 1997. The album, featuring The Clark Sisters, Faith Evans, and daughter Kierra Sheard, was nominated for a Grammy Award, in addition to winning a Soul Train Lady of Soul Award. She has since released five more solo albums: 2nd Chance, The Heavens Are Telling, It's Not Over, All in One, and Destined to Win.
Dorinda released her self-titled debut solo album, Dorinda Clark-Cole in 2002, earning her two Stellar Awards, and a Soul Train Lady of Soul award. She has since released four more solo albums: Live in Houston and Take It Back, each of which have earned her the award for Female Vocalist of the Year at the Stellar Awards; I Survived in 2011, and in 2015, she released her fifth solo album, Living It, which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Gospel Album.
Jacky released her first solo project, Expectancy, in 2005, which features The Clark Sisters on the track "Blessing Me". In 2014, she released an urban-inspired single, "My Season", followed by singles "Cover Me" and "Shout". In February 2020, she released a single "Feel Good", featuring Mary J. Blige and rapper Tia P.
The Clark Sisters have all contributed in various capacities to each other's albums, whether they sang or wrote lyrics.
Live...One Last Time and Grammy recognition (2007-2009)
On July 8, 2006, The Clark Sisters (Jacky, Twinkie, Dorinda, and Karen) recorded a live album in Houston, Texas, entitled Live...One Last Time. The recording was directed and produced by Donald Lawrence and was released as a CD on April 10, 2007 on EMI Gospel, followed by a CD/DVD Special Edition release on June 19, 2007. In support of the reunion album, the Clark Sisters embarked on a 25-city concert tour beginning October 4, 2007 in Nashville, Tennessee. Though they had been thrice nominated previously for the Best Soul Gospel Performance by a Duo or Group Grammy with 1982's Sincerely, 1986's Heart & Soul, and 1988's Conqueror without a win, the group was nominated for two Grammys in 2008. Live...One Last Time won the award for Best Traditional Gospel Album. Its album track "Blessed & Highly Favored" won the award for Best Gospel Performance, and as songwriter of "Blessed & Highly Favored," sister Karen Clark Sheard won the individual award for Best Gospel Song. Additionally, at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony featuring a gospel segment with Aretha Franklin, BeBe Winans, Israel & New Breed, and Trin-i-tee 5:7, the Clark Sisters performed a snippet of their signature hit "You Brought the Sunshine" when the ceremony was broadcast on February 10 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Following the group's resurgence in popularity, Rhino Entertainment released a greatest-hits collection including material from three albums recorded for Word Records from the mid-1980s through the early 1990s, including the Grammy-nominated Heart & Soul. The album, Encore: The Best of the Clark Sisters, was released on February 12, 2008. In December of that year, TV One's popular hour-long music documentary series Unsung featured the Clark Sisters in its second episode. The episode, which highlighted the group's role in breaking down barriers in gospel music, featured interviews with each sister except sister Denise Clark Bradford, who since leaving the group, had relocated to California and had begun a ministry.
In 2009, the Clark Sisters released their second Christmas album, entitled The Clark Sisters' Family Christmas, which featured special appearances by Karen's daughter Kierra Sheard, and their cousins Bill Moss, Jr. and James Moss (known as J. Moss). The album was produced by Karen's son, J. Drew Sheard, II.
Lifetime movie and The Return (2018-present)
On November 11, 2018, it was reported that The Clark Sisters would have a television biopic, The Clark Sisters: First Ladies of Gospel. The film aired on Lifetime on April 11, 2020, and netted a viewership of 2.7 million, giving the network its highest rated original movie in four years. The film was executive produced by Queen Latifah, Missy Elliott, and Mary J. Blige, and starred Aunjanue Ellis as Dr. Mattie Moss Clark, Angela Birchett as Jacky Clark Chisholm, Raven Goodwin as Denise Clark Bradford, Christina Bell as Twinkie Clark, Sheléa Frazier as Dorinda Clark Cole, and Kierra Sheard as her mother, Karen Clark Sheard. The movie was directed by Christine Swanson, the story was by Camille Tucker, with a teleplay by Sylvia L. Jones and Camille Tucker.
The Clark Sisters were among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
On October 18, 2019, the Clark Sisters debuted their new single "Victory" on Erica Campbell's radio show Get Up Erica. The single was later released on November 15, 2019, through Karew/Motown Gospel/Capitol CMG On March 13, 2020, the Clark Sisters released their seventeenth album, The Return. Their first release in over a decade, it featured production from J. Drew Sheard, II, Warryn Campell, Rodney Jerkins, Jermaine Dupri, Mano Hines, and Kurt Carr, with a special feature by Snoop Dogg on the track, "His Love".
Artistry
"The Clark Sound"
Since early in the group's development, Twinkie has been the chief songwriter, vocal arranger, and producer for the group. The Clark Sisters as a whole are renowned for their group style, dubbed as "the Clark Sound". They incorporate high and fast melismas, acrobatic trills and riffs, and deep, soulful growls or "squalls". While they have been praised for their precise harmonies, The Clark Sisters are also known for their individual, distinctive vocal styles, and while there is no single lead vocalist in the group, each sister has led a handful of songs over the years.
The Clark Sisters have cited Aretha Franklin, who also grew up in Detroit, as a major musical influence. When Franklin died of pancreatic cancer in 2018, the Clark Sisters sang one of their signature songs, "Is My Living in Vain", at her service.
Group timeline and structure
Influence and covers
The Clark Sisters are credited as vocal inspirations to Faith Evans, Kelly Price, Mary Mary, Queen Latifah, Kelly Rowland, Mary J. Blige, Yebba and Mariah Carey. Their musical influence has been celebrated through covers and interpolations from both religious and secular artists alike.
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilation albums
Singles
as lead artist
as a featured artist
Other charted songs
Other appearances
Awards
BET Awards
The BET Awards are awarded annually by the Black Entertainment Television network. The Clark Sisters have received 2 nominations.
Dove Awards
The Dove Awards are awarded annually by the Gospel Music Association. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 8 nominations.
Grammy Awards
The Grammy Awards are awarded annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 7 nominations.
NAACP Image Awards
The NAACP Image Awards are awarded annually by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Clark Sisters have won 2 awards from 4 nominations.
Soul Train Awards
The Soul Train Music Awards are awarded annually. The Clark Sisters have received 3 nominations.
Stellar Awards
The Stellar Awards are awarded annually by SAGMA. The Clark Sisters have received 6 awards and 1 honorary award.
References
External links
Clark Sisters Official Myspace Page
The Clark Sisters Official Message Board
Clark Sisters Marathon on Myspace
Clark Sisters Internet Radio Station on Live365
Stellar Awards
Clark Sisters: Live, One Last Time (Release Alert on BlackGospel.com)
Grammy Award winners
American gospel musical groups
Singers from Detroit
American gospel singers
Sibling quartets
African-American musical groups
Musical groups from Detroit
African-American Christians
American Pentecostals
Members of the Church of God in Christ
American girl groups
Musical groups established in 1966
1966 establishments in Michigan
African-American women musicians | false | [
"\"How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye\" is a 1983 song by Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross. The ballad was issued as the lead single (and title track) of Warwick's latest of the same name, later appearing on Vandross' album Busy Body, both of which were released in 1983. The single was a top ten hit on both Billboards Hot Black Singles chart and Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart, also reaching #27 on the Billboard Hot 100., becoming Luther Vandross' highest charting pop hit at the time until 1986.\n\nTrack listing\nUS Vinyl 7\" single 45 RPM\nA \"How Many Times Can We Say Goodbye\" (Dionne Warwick and Luther Vandross) – 3:27\nB \"What Can a Miracle Do\" (Dionne Warwick) – 4:39\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nSongs about parting\n1983 songs\n1983 singles\nLuther Vandross songs\nDionne Warwick songs\nContemporary R&B ballads\nPop ballads\nVocal duets\nEpic Records singles\nArista Records singles",
"\"Oh How I Waited\" was a minor hit in 1970 for Ron Lowry. It was the second hit for Lowry in the United States. Previously that year he had done very well with \"Marry Me\".\n\nBackground\n\"Oh How I Waited\" bw \"Look At Me\" was released on Republic 1415 in July 1970. It was Lowry's third single on the record label. With \"Marry Me\", the song peaked at #39 earlier that year.\n\nChart performance\nIn the July 18 issue of Billboard, \"Oh How I Waited\" with its strong rhythm was predicted to make the Country Top 20 and surpass his previous hit. In the issued dated September 19, 1970, it peaked at No. 65 on the country singles chart.\n\nReferences\n\n1969 songs\n1970 singles\nSongs written by Les Reed (songwriter)\nSongs written by Geoff Stephens"
] |
[
"50 Cent",
"2000-01: Shooting"
] | C_63224f60b00c4d6caa2cb49528bbe8dc_1 | what happened with 50 cent in 2001? | 1 | what happened with 50 cent in 2001? | 50 Cent | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. After Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". After using a walker for six weeks, Jackson was fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor and entrepreneur. Known for his impact in the hip hop industry, he has been described as a "master of the nuanced art of lyrical brevity".
Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began selling drugs at age 12 during the 1980s crack epidemic. He later began pursuing a musical career and in 2000 he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records, but days before the planned release he was shot and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the compilation album Guess Who's Back?, he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre (who produced his first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin'), 50 Cent became one of the world's best selling rappers and rose to prominence as de facto leader of East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. In 2003, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre, which was released in 2005. He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.
50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). 50 Cent was ranked the sixth-best artist of the 2000s and the third-best rapper (behind Eminem and Nelly) by Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Early life
Jackson was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, and raised in its South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother Sabrina. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was 8. (online is excerpt only) Jackson revealed in an interview that his mother was a lesbian. After his mother's death and his father's departure, Jackson was raised by his grandmother.
He began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip," Jackson remembered. He sold crack during primary school. "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too ... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."
At age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs and brought guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself.The Smoking Gun: 50 Cent . The Smoking Gun (February 27, 2003). Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."
Career
1996–2002: Rise to fame, shooting, and early mixtapes
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records.Tarek, Shams (May 16, 2003). Jamaica's 'Own Bad Guy' 50 Cent Making Good in the Music Biz . Queens Press. Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, for their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks; eighteen were included on his 2000 album, Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf.Williams, Houston (February 2004). Bang'em Smurf: Life after G-Unit. AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio.50 Cent. From Pieces to Weight Part 5 . MTV. Accessed May 22, 2007. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized.
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.
Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique.
In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada.Weiner, Jonah (April 2005). Dear Superstar: 50 Cent . Blender. Accessed May 22, 2007. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
===2002–2007: Mainstream breakthrough, Get Rich or Die Tryin''', and The Massacre===
In 2002, Eminem heard Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD, received from Jackson's attorney (who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg). Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released No Mercy, No Fear. The mixtape featured one new track, "Wanksta", which appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
50 Cent released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope gave Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. In March 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, with Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joining the label, who all eventually departed the label.Chery, Carl (May 27, 2005). Pulse Report: M.O.P. Signs to G-Unit . SOHH. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Jackson expressed an interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
2007–2010: Curtis, sales battle with Kanye West, and Before I Self Destruct
In September 2007, 50 Cent released his third album, Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly-publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop.
On the September 10, 2008 episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009 and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009.
2010–2015: New musical directions, new business ventures, and Animal Ambition
In a Contactmusic.com interview, Jackson said he was working on a Eurodance album, Black Magic, inspired by European nightclubs: "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He later said he had changed his next album to The Return of the Heartless Monster after writing different material when he returned home from the Invitation Tour in 2010, shelving Black Magic. On September 3, Jackson supported Eminem on his and Jay-Z's The Home & Home Tour, performing "Crack A Bottle" with Eminem and Dr. Dre amid rumors of tension between Jackson and Dre.
He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before putting them aside, wanting his new album to have the "aggression" of Get Rich or Die Tryin. Jackson tweeted that the album was "80 percent done" and fans could expect it in the summer of 2011. It was ultimately delayed a year due to disagreements with Interscope Records, with Jackson saying that he would release it in November 2011 with a different title than Black Magic. Eminem would appear on the album, and Jackson said he was working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' "Start It Up", confirmed that he produced a song for the upcoming album.
Jackson released a song, "Outlaw", from his fifth album on the Internet on June 16, 2011. The single, produced by Cardiak, was released on iTunes on July 19 (although Jackson tweeted that it was not the album's first single). The rapper planned to write a semi-autobiographical young-adult novel about bullying, different from his previous books which focused on his life and the rules of power. According to the book's publisher, the first-person novel (about a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done") was scheduled for publication in January 2012.
In a series of tweets, Jackson said that the delay of his fifth album was due to disagreements with Interscope Records, later suggesting that it would be released in November 2011 with his headphone line (SMS by 50). He speculated to MTV News about not renewing his five-album contract with Interscope: "I don't know ... It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."
On June 20, 2011, Jackson announced the release of Before I Self Destruct II after his fifth album. Although he planned to shoot a music video for the fifth album's lead single, "I'm On It", on June 26 the video was never filmed. Jackson told Shade45, "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it." He released "Street King Energy Track #7" in September 2011 to promote Street King, his charity-based energy drink. An announcement that Jackson was shooting a music video for "Girls Go Wild", the fifth-album lead single featuring Jeremih, was made on September 28, 2011.Music Video News: IN PRODUCTION: 50 Cent f/ Jeremih – Colin Tilley . Video Static (September 28, 2011). Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
Jackson's fifth album, Street King Immortal, was initially scheduled for a summer 2012 release and postponed until November 13. Disagreements with Interscope Records about its release and promotion led to its temporary cancellation. Its first promo single, "New Day" with Dr. Dre and Alicia Keys, was released on July 27. The song was produced by Dr. Dre, mixed by Eminem and written by 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre. A solo version by Keys was leaked by her husband, Swizz Beatz. "My Life", the album's second promo single (with Eminem and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine), was released on November 26, 2012.
In January 2014, Jackson said he planned to release Animal Ambition in the first quarter of the year, followed by Street King Immortal. On February 20, he left Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope, signing with Caroline and Capitol Music Group. According to Jackson, although he owed Interscope another album, he was released from his contract because of his friendship with Eminem and Dr. Dre: "I'm a special case and situation. It's also because of the leverage of having the strong relationships with Eminem and Dr. Dre. They don't want me to be uncomfortable. They value our friendship to the point that they would never want [to jeopardize] it over that little bit of money."
That day, he announced that Animal Ambition would be released on June 3 and released its first track. The song, "Funeral", was released with a video on Forbes.com. Produced by Jake One, it is a continuation of "50 Bars" from a previous album; two more tracks were scheduled for release on March 18. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Jackson performed "Hold On" from the new album. That song and "Don't Worry 'Bout It" were released with accompanying videos on March 18. According to Jackson, prosperity would be a theme of the album: "This project, I had to search for a concept, a really good concept, in my perspective, and that was prosperity. I outlined all the things that would be a part of prosperity, positive and negative [for Animal Ambition]."
2015–present: Street King Immortal, bankruptcy, and departure from Interscope
On May 14, 2015, Jackson revealed in an interview that the first single from Street King Immortal, would be previewed Memorial Day weekend and would likely be released in June. Jackson released "Get Low" on May 20, 2015, as the intended first single from his sixth studio album, Street King Immortal. The song, produced by Remo the Hitmaker, features vocals from fellow American rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., as well as American singer Jeremih. He announced bankruptcy on July 13, 2015.
On March 31, 2017, Interscope Records released 50 Cent's final album for the label, a greatest hits album titled Best Of.
50 Cent was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In 2020, Jackson led the executive-producer duties for late rapper Pop Smoke's debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, having been one of Pop Smoke's biggest inspirations. The album was released on July 3, 2020. Jackson curated the album, desiring to finish it after Pop had died. He contacted many of the artists involved, and also features on one of the album tracks, "The Woo", which became a top ten single.
In 2020, it was reported that Jackson was producing two television series for Starz, an anthology about hip hop and a biographical drama about sports agent Nicole Lynn.
In 2021, he became one of the headliners of the music festival Golden Sand in Riviera Maya.
In a July 2021 interview with The Independent, 50 Cent confirmed that he had officially decided to shelve his Street King Immortal album after it spent a decade in development hell. He even confirmed that he plans to release a completely new project.
In August 2021, he was confirmed to be starring in the upcoming The Expendables film.
On February 13, 2022, 50 Cent was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Awards
Artistry
Jackson cites Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, The Juice Crew, EPMD and KRS-One as his rapping influences, while citing LL Cool J as an inspiration behind his writing of "21 Questions". Jackson also states that he drew influences from Nas, Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G. while working on Animal Ambition.
Business ventures
Jackson has had a highly successful business career. He is financially invested in a highly diversified variety of industries. Jackson is now involved in artist and talent management, record, television, and film production, footwear, apparel, fragrances, liquor, video games, mobile apps, book publishing, headphones, along with health drinks and dietary supplements. His broad business and investment portfolio contains investments in a variety of sectors including real estate, financial market investments, mining, boxing promotion, vodka, fragrances, consumer electronics and fashion.
He established his own record label G-Unit Records in 2003 following his mainstream success. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line for his G-Unit Clothing Company.Leeds, Jeff (December 26, 2004). $50 Million for 50 Cent . The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2007. In an interview, Jackson said his businesses had a habit of doing well as he saw all of his ventures both past and present as revolving around his alter ego.
Jackson has also started a book publishing imprint, G-Unit Books on January 4, 2007 at the Time Warner Building in New York. He has written a number of books including a memoir, From Pieces To Weight in 2005 where it sold 73,000 copies in hardcover and 14,000 copies in paperback; a crime novel and a book with Robert Greene titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power. In November 2011, Jackson released 50 Cent's Playground, a young adult fiction novel about a bullied, violent boy and his gay mother.
One of Jackson's first business ventures was a partnership with Glacéau to create an enhanced water drink called Formula 50. In October 2004, Jackson became a beverage investor when he was given a minority share in the company in exchange for becoming a spokesperson after learning that he was a fan of the beverage. The health conscious Jackson noted that he first learned of the product while at a gym in Los Angeles, and stated that "they do such a good job making water taste good." After becoming a minority shareholder and celebrity spokesperson, Jackson worked with the company to create a new grape flavored "Formula 50" variant of VitaminWater and mentioned the drinks in various songs and interviews. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for $4.1 billion and, according to Forbes, Jackson, who was a minority shareholder, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes.
Though he no longer has an equity stake in the company, Jackson continues to act as a spokesperson for VitaminWater, supporting the product including singing about it at the BET Awards and expressing his excitement over the company's continuing to allow his input on products.
He joined Right Guard to introduce a body spray (Pure 50 RGX) and endorsed Magic Stick condoms, planning to donate part of their proceeds to increasing HIV awareness. Jackson signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia, and announced plans for a dietary-supplement company in conjunction with his film Spectacular Regret in August 2007.Jokesta (August 21, 2007). 50 Cent launches dietary supplement company. Def Sounds. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
Jackson has founded two film production companies: G-Unit Films in 2003 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.For The Record: Quick News on Eminem, Ciara, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Public Enemy & More . MTV (March 23, 2007). Accessed May 22, 2007. Cheetah Vision produces low budget action thrillers for foreign film markets across the world. When G-Unit Films folded, he focused on Cheetah Vision and the company obtained $200 million in funding in 2010. In 2010, Jackson revived G-Unit Films, renaming the company to G-Unit Films and Television Inc. The company has joint ventures with Will Packer's production company Will Packer Productions and Universal Television. In over 18 months, Jackson has sold projects to six different networks. Among them was Power, a STARZ drama in which he not only co-stars but also serves as co-creator and executive producer. Power debuted in June 2014 and was renewed for a second season after one episode.
Jackson serves as a co‐star, co-creator and executive television producer of the STARZ network drama where he signed a 2-year contract with representation coming from the Agency for the Performing Arts. Ratings have been a success for Starz. with the second-season premiere being the highest-ever season with 1.43 million people tuning in live.
In 2002, Jackson filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "50 Cent" as a trademark for clothing, sound recordings, and live performances. The application was published in 2003, and registration issued in 2004. He has since filed for additional trademark registrations.
In July 2011, Jackson launched a philanthropic initiative to provide food for one billion starving people in Africa by 2016, joining Pure Growth Partners to introduce Street King. A portion of the proceeds from each Street King purchase would be used to provide a daily meal to an underprivileged child. The partnership coincides with Jackson's goal to feed a billion people in Africa during the next five years. "50 Cent and I share a common vision: to address the world's problems through smart and sustainable business models," said Chris Clarke, founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. "With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever." Jackson said, "I'm inspired by Clarke's vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It's our mission with Street King to really change children's lives around the world."Langhorne, Cyrus. (August 13, 2011) 50 Cent On "Street King" Global Takeover, "I Need Your Support" . Sohh.Com. Retrieved on October 25, 2011. In 2011, he founded SMS Audio, a consumer-electronics company selling Street by 50 headphones, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to charity. In April 2015, SMS announced new co-branding deals with Reebok and Marvel. It added those to existing partnerships with Walt Disney Parks, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, and Intel.
In 2014, Jackson became a minority shareholder in Effen Vodka, a brand of vodka produced in the Netherlands, when he invested undisclosed amount in the company Sire Spirits LLC. He currently endorses the product via his live concert performances and social media. The rapper was asked to take part in two promotional bottle signings, one in Oak Creek and another in Sun Prairie. Jackson made an appearance at Liquor Warehouse in Syracuse, New York on April 25, 2015 where he reportedly sold 1,400 bottles (277 gallons) of Jackson's signature liquor brand. Liquor Warehouse's owner George Angeloro reportedly stocked 300 cases (1,800 bottles or 357 gallons) of Effen Vodka, which sells for $30 a bottle, prior to the event.
In December 2014, Jackson signed a $78 million deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, a luxury underwear brand. The joint venture is partnered between Jackson, basketball player Carmelo Anthony, baseball player Derek Jeter and Mathias Ingvarsson, the former president of mattress company Tempur-Pedic. Jackson became the chief fashion designer for the brands single pair of Frigo boxers. In April 2015, Jackson mulled investing in Jamaica, exploring foreign investment opportunities on the island when he met with some local officials and had ongoing discussions on investment opportunities in the Montego Bay resort area.
Investments
Over the years, Jackson invested his earnings from music and celebrity endorsements in an array of privately controlled companies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. A portion of his investments lost value during the 2008 recession. In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market. Unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, Jackson postponed Before I Self-Destruct due to the severity of the economic downturn.
His Farmington mansion located on 50 Poplar Hill Drive that he tried to sell for years filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2015 listed an asking price for that property in 2012 at $10 million but was valued at $8.3 million in 2015. He first tried to sell the house in 2007 for $18.5 million, and dropped the price several times in the next five years, when it was on and off the market.
In January 2011, Jackson reportedly made $10 million after using Twitter to promote a marketing company which he was part shareholder of. His endorsements company G Unit Brands Inc. revealed through a public SEC filing controls 12.9 per cent of H&H Imports, which is a parent company of TV Goods – the firm responsible for marketing his range of headphones, Sleek by 50 Cent. Jackson bought stock in the company on November 30, 2010, a week after it offered buyers 180 million shares at 17 cents each. Jackson later made a stock recommendation on Twitter, causing its share value to rise from four cents to nearly 50 cents (32p) each, closing on Monday at 39 cents (25p). Jackson was later investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for breaching securities laws following his tweet which may have constituted allegations of Insider trading via his Pump and dump stock investment strategy.
In 2013, Jackson became a minority investor in Hang w/, a live video broadcasting mobile app used by dozens of celebrities to broadcast their daily activities and chat with fans. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times since its launch in March 2013 and had more than 1 million users . Other minority celebrity investors include former NFL player Terrell Owens and record producer Timbaland.
Mining and heavy metals
In 2008, Jackson visited a platinum, palladium and iridium mine shaft in South Africa, and met with South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe in talks of purchasing an equity stake in the mine. After his meeting with Motsepe, Jackson considered purchasing equity in the mine and launching his own line of 50 Cent branded platinum.
Boxing promotion
On July 21, 2012, Jackson became a licensed boxing promoter when he formed his new company, TMT (The Money Team). Licensed to promote in New York, he was in the process of being licensed in Nevada (where most major fights are held in the U.S.). A former amateur boxer, Jackson signed gold medalist and former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and middleweight Olympic medalist Andre Dirrell. On July 29, 2012, he and the boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., signed IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib. They unveiled plans to challenge the box-office dominance of mixed martial arts and change the landscape of boxing with TMT Promotions. Boxer Zab Judah also expressed interest in making a deal with Jackson. In December 2012, Mayweather and Jackson parted company, with Jackson taking over the promotion company and founding SMS Promotions with Gamboa, Dirrell, Dib, James Kirkland, Luis Olivares and Donte Strayhorn in his stable.
Bankruptcy
On July 13, 2015, Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91. On July 17, 2015, the Court issued an order allowing a creditor to proceed with the punitive damages phase of a trial against Jackson in a New York state court, in connection with the alleged release of a private video. His assets were listed as between $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, though he testified under oath that he is worth $4.4 million. Citing between $10 million and $50 million in debt, and the same amount in assets. Later in the week, Jackson's bankruptcy lawyers elucidated the court documents that legal fees and judgments exceeding $20 million over the past year were the primary cause of the filing.
His filings listed 32 entities that he has a stake in. The bankruptcy came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend Lastonia Leviston for invading her privacy by posting online a sex tape of her and another man. In addition, Jackson lost a dispute over a failed business deal to come to fruition to his Sleek headphones, where Jackson invested more than $2 million. An ex-partner accused Jackson of later stealing the design of the "Sleek by 50" headphones, prompting a judge to award the partner more than $17.2 million. His Connecticut bankruptcy filing states that he owns seven cars valued at more than $500,000, including a 2010 Rolls Royce and a 1966 Chevrolet Coupe. His expenses of $108,000 a month include $5,000 for gardening along with a monthly income of $185,000, mainly from royalties and income from his external businesses and investments. The court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber, and his fitness coach.
Other details in the bankruptcy documents included information about two deals that sold the right to collect royalties of on-air play of his music. Half the rights to his portfolio were sold to the British independent music publishing company Kobalt Music Group for $3 million and the other half for another $3 million with the sales of his albums allowing Jackson to own 100 percent of the rights to the master recordings while paying only for distribution. Zeisler & Zeisler, a Bridgeport law firm, represented 50 Cent in the bankruptcy, which later resulted in Jackson filing a $75 million lawsuit against his own lawyers. He stated that his lawyers did a terrible job of representing him, specifically citing the fallout of his failed venture with Sleek Audio headphones and accused Garvey Schubert Barer, a Wall Street law firm, of failing to "employ the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to confront the circumstances of the case."
Corporate positions
G-Unity Foundation Inc. – Founder
SMS Audio – CEO, founder
SK Energy – Founder
SMS Promotions – CEO, founder
Sire Spirits – Owner
Effen Vodka – former minority shareholder
Personal life
On October 13, 1996, Jackson's girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, gave birth to son Marquise Jackson. Tompkins later sued Jackson for $50 million, saying he promised to take care of her for life. The suit, with 15 causes of action, was dismissed by a judge who called it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour." The two have bickered for years, and have even taken their feud to social media many times.
Marquise's birth changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him that I didn't have with my father". He credited his son for inspiring his career and being the "motivation to go in a different direction". Despite this, the two have endured a fractured relationship that began when Jackson and Tompkins separated in 2008. Their feud has been taken to social media numerous times, including in 2020 when Jackson disclosed that he "used to" love his son. Jackson has a tattooed "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps ("The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though"), and has "50", "Southside" and "Cold World" on his back: "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me".
Jackson dated model Daphne Joy and had his second son, Sire Jackson, with her, on September 1, 2012. At the age of two years, Sire modeled for Kidz Safe, a headphone brand for kids, earning $700,000 through his contract.
In 2005, Jackson supported President George W. Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized Bush for a slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he said, he would have voted for the president. Jackson later said that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush." In September 2007, he told Time that although he would not endorse a candidate in 2008, he "liked Hillary [Clinton]".
Six months later, the rapper told MTV News that he had switched his support to Barack Obama after hearing him speak, but had lost interest in politics.MTV News, "50 cent Flip-flops: From Clinton to Obama," March 28, 2008 Asked his opinion of President Obama's May 9, 2012 endorsement of gay marriage, Jackson said, "I'm for it ... I've encouraged same-sex activities. I've engaged in fetish areas a couple times." He had been criticized for anti-gay comments in the past.Mariel Concepcion, GLAAD Calls Out 50 Cent For Anti-Gay Tweet , Billboard, September 10, 2010
Despite having numerous songs that reference drug and alcohol usage, Jackson remains teetotal, citing a bad experience with alcohol as his main reason.Forbes noted Jackson's wealth in 2007, ranking him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry. He lives in a Farmington, Connecticut, mansion formerly owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, listing it for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son (who lives on Long Island with his ex-girlfriend). The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared October 12, 2007 "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day", honoring the rapper with a proclamation and a key to the city. One of Jackson's New York homes, purchased in January 2007 for $2.4 million and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 31, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana.
In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had lost several million dollars in the stock market and, unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, had postponed Before I Self-Destruct because of the economic downturn. Jackson won a lawsuit in November 2009 against Taco Bell over the fast-food chain's use of his name without permission.
In 2016, regarding a public feud with rapper Meek Mill, he commented, "You know, he's really not that bright. The easiest thing you can do is bring other people into the statements you're saying, right, while you're writing music."
Jackson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He rejected an offer of $500,000 from the Trump campaign to make an appearance on the candidate's behalf. However, he endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, due to his dislike of Joe Biden's tax plans. A week later, he retracted his endorsement, saying on Twitter "Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him", and endorsed Biden.
Legal issues, Drugs and assault convictions
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine and a starter's pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp (where he earned his high-school equivalency diploma). According to him, he did not use cocaine.
Jackson and four members of his entourage were arrested shortly before 2 a.m. on December 31, 2002, when police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol in a parked car (which they searched due to its tinted windows) outside a Manhattan nightclub. The rapper was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Jackson was sentenced to two years' probation on July 22, 2005 for a May 2004 incident, when he was charged with three counts of assault and battery after jumping into an audience when he was hit by a water bottle.
Lawsuits
Use of image
Jackson filed a lawsuit against an advertising company, Traffix of Pearl River, New York, on July 21, 2007, for using his image in a promotion he said threatened his safety. He was alerted by a staff member to an Internet advertisement on a Myspace page. According to court documents, the advertisement had a cartoon image of the rapper with "Shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed". Although the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly resembled him and suggested that he endorsed the product. The lawsuit, calling the ad a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of Jackson's image which "quite literally call[ed] for violence against him", sought unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.50 Cent Sues over 'Shoot the Rapper'. Fox News (July 20, 2007). Retrieved December 17, 2015.
Use of name
In 2008, Jackson sued Taco Bell over an ad campaign in which it invited him to change his name for one day from 50 Cent to 79 Cent, 89 Cent, or 99 Cent, in line with pricing for some of its items, and they would donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. The case was settled out of court.
Janitor incident
While walking through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in May 2016, Jackson harassed and insulted a janitor at the airport, accusing him of being under the influence. The janitor was a hearing-impaired, autistic teenager named Andrew Farrell. The parents of the janitor had seen the viral video as disrespect and wanted to sue Jackson for his action against their child. The lawsuit was originally over one million dollars, but the parents settled for a $100,000 donation to Autism Speaks and his apology.
Bamba sample
In 2016, a judge declared that Brandon Parrott gave Dr. Dre and 50 Cent the rights to "Bamba" for the song "P.I.M.P."
Other civil and criminal matters
One of his New York homes, purchased for $2.4 million in January 2007 and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana. On August 5, 2013, Jackson pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in a Los Angeles County court. If convicted of all charges, he faced up to five years in prison and a $46,000 fine. Model-actress Daphne Joy accused Jackson of kicking her and ransacking her bedroom during an argument at her condominium in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 23. He allegedly caused $7,100 in property damage, leaving the scene before police arrived.
Judge Ann Nevins has ordered Jackson back to court because of Instagram messages he made over several months. She said Jackson was not fully clear about his funds and indicated posts of the rapper showing stacks of his money. In March 2016, Jackson claimed that he would no longer use Instagram, electing instead to have his profile page operated by someone else.
In 2020, Jackson was a subject of controversy for his involvement in a viral video of him giving money to a Burger King restaurant in New York City on behalf of a local scammer who was later arrested and charged for Bitcoin scamming and for assaulting and kidnapping his victims on April 24, 2021.
Feuds
Ja Rule
Before he signed with Interscope Records, Jackson engaged in a public dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label, Murder Inc. Records, saying that a friend robbed jewelry from Ja Rule and the latter accused him of orchestrating the robbery. Ja Rule said that the conflict stemmed from a Queens video shoot, when Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. At The Hit Factory in New York in March 2000, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates and received three stitches for a stab wound.Smith, Dominic (July 2005). 50 Cent Interview. FHM. Retrieved July 11, 2007. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying that he acted in self-defense when he thought someone reached for a gun.
An affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent suggested ties between Murder Inc. and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord suspected of involvement in the murder of Jam Master Jay and Jackson's shooting. An excerpt read:
The end of the Jackson-Ja Rule feud was confirmed in May 2011. According to Ja Rule, "I'm cool. We ain't beefing no more. We'll never collaborate. That's just what it is. You don't have to be at war with somebody, but it's also kind of like U.S. and another country that they may not get along with. We don't gotta go to war, but we're not friends either. But we can coincide inside of a world. He's doing him, and he's not thinking about me, and I'm doing me and I'm not thinking about him."
On August 7, 2015, the feud between the two rappers later reignited when Ja Rule gave a feedback to a social follower via Twitter over a similar feud between Meek Mill and Drake. Enraged, Jackson later responded with photos and comments via Instagram, only siding with Drake. The feud resurfaced three years later on January 19, 2018, when Ja Rule took to Twitter, calling out 50 Cent on social media. 50 Cent responded by purchasing and vacating the first four rows of his concert.
The Game
Although Jackson was close to The Game before the latter released his debut album, The Documentary, they grew apart. After The Documentarys release, Jackson felt that The Game was disloyal for saying that he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers (such as Nas, Jadakiss and Fat Joe) and his desire to work with artists with which G-Unit was feuding. He said that he wrote six songs for the album and did not receive proper credit, which The Game denied.
Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97. After the announcement, The Game (a guest earlier in the evening) tried to enter the building with his entourage. After they were denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg in a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.Hope, Clover (March 2, 2005). 50 Cent Cancels New York Appearance amid Shooting Inquiry . AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007. When the situation escalated, the rappers held a joint press conference announcing their reconciliation, and fans were uncertain if the rappers had staged a publicity stunt to boost sales of their recently released albums. After the situation cooled, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility and announced that they would not appear on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance The Game announced a boycott of G-Unit, which he called "G-Unot".
After the Summer Jam performance The Game recorded "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" of G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella Records, for the mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 3. Jackson responded with his "Piggy Bank" music video, with The Game as Mr. Potato Head and parodies of other rivals. They have continued attacking each other, with The Game releasing two more mixtapes: Ghost Unit and a mixtape-DVD, Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin. Jackson superimposed The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for the cover of the Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21) mixtape in response to The Game's pictures of G-Unit dressed as the Village People. The Game, under contract to Aftermath Entertainment, signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although it is claimed that Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to fire him). G-Unit member Spider Loc has insulted The Game in songs, and the latter released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" attacking G-Unit and Loc. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", mocking The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle-booth segment, followed by a Game "diss" song ("SoundScan") ridiculing the 13-position drop of Banks' album Rotten Apple on the Billboard 200 chart and its disappointing second-week sales. Banks replied on his mixtape Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues with "Showtime (The Game's Over)", said that Jackson wrote half of The Documentary and ridiculed The Game's suicidal thoughts.
In October 2006, The Game made a peace overture (which was not immediately answered) to Jackson, but two days later he said on Power 106 that the peace offer was valid for only one day. In several songs on Doctor's Advocate, he implied that the feud was over. He said in July 2009 that the feud had ended with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and apologized for his actions. According to Tony Yayo, neither Jackson nor G-Unit accepted his apology and The Game has resumed his calls for a "G-Unot" boycott at concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" on Before I Self Destruct, targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. The Game responded with "Shake", poking fun at the music video for Jackson's "Candy Shop".
On August 1, 2016, 50 Cent ended his twelve-year feud with The Game when the two were in the Ace of Diamonds Strip Club and The Game said "What happened, that shit was 12 years ago."
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross began a feud with Jackson over an alleged incident at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, Jackson told news sources he did not remember seeing Ross there. Later that month Ross' "Mafia Music" was leaked on the Internet, with lyrics apparently disparaging Jackson. Several days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to "Mafia Music". The following day, Ross appeared on Shade 45 (Eminem's Sirius channel) and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video ("Warning Shot") and the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. In early February he uploaded a YouTube video in which he interviewed "Tia", the mother of one of Ross' children; according to her, Ross is in reality a correctional officer. On February 5, 2009, The Game phoned Seattle radio station KUBE. Asked about the dispute between Jackson and Ross, he sided with Jackson and offered to mediate: "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man" and "50 eating you, boy."
On his album Deeper Than Rap, Ross refers to Jackson in "In Cold Blood" and Jackson's mock funeral is part of the song's video. When the song was released, Ross said that he ended Jackson's career. "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," Jackson replied in an interview. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross." Their feud rekindled at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, where Jackson and G-Unit members Kidd Kidd, Mike Knox, Tony Yayo were seen on video attacking Gunplay (a member of Ross' Maybach Music Group). Gunplay's Maybach Music diamond necklace was stolen during the brawl, and several days later Jackson appeared at a Washington, D.C. bowling alley wearing Gunplay's chain. On January 30, 2013, Jackson tweeted that Ross' attempted drive-by shooting on his birthday three days earlier was "staged".
On August 9, 2020, 50 Cent and Rick Ross ended their feud.
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2009)
Animal Ambition (2014)
Collaborative albums
Beg for Mercy (with G-Unit) (2003)
T·O·S (Terminate on Sight)'' (with G-Unit) (2008)
Filmography
Film
Television
Appearances
Video games
References
External links
1975 births
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American fashion designers
African-American film producers
African-American investors
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American memoirists
African-American record producers
African-American male songwriters
Aftermath Entertainment artists
American book publishers (people)
American boxing promoters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of food industry companies
American corporate directors
American cosmetics businesspeople
American drink industry businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American film producers
American hip hop record producers
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American marketing businesspeople
American memoirists
American mining businesspeople
American music industry executives
American music publishers (people)
American nonprofit businesspeople
American people convicted of drug offenses
American reality television producers
American retail chief executives
American shooting survivors
American television company founders
American television executives
Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
Businesspeople in metals
Caroline Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Echo (music award) winners
Gangsta rappers
Grammy Award winners for rap music
G-Unit Records artists
JMJ Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Living people
Male actors from New York City
People from Jamaica, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Rappers from New York City
Record producers from New York (state)
Shady Records artists
Shoe designers
Songwriters from New York (state)
Sony Music Publishing artists
Stabbing attacks in the United States
Stabbing survivors
Television producers from New York City
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Queens, New York | false | [
"\"If I Can't\" is a song by American hip-hop artist 50 Cent, released as the fourth and final single from his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003). The song is one of four on the album to be produced by hip-hop producer Dr. Dre, with co-production from frequent collaborator Mike Elizondo. Lyrically, the song describes how 50 Cent believes that \"if I [he] can't do it [referring to anything], it can't be done\".\n\nUpon its release, the song was a reasonable commercial success. However, it did not match the commercial success of the album's three previous singles, only peaking at number 76 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, where the three previous singles had all peaked within the top three. Nevertheless, it did peak in the upper regions of several national charts - most successfully in the United Kingdom, where it peaked at number ten after being released as a double A-side with the G-Unit single \"Poppin' Them Thangs\".\n\nBackground \n{{quote|\"Before my album Get Rich or Die Tryin came out, there was a big debate about what the first single should be. Jimmy Iovine thought it should be the one that Dr. Dre produced, 'If I Can't'. But Em wanted 'In da Club'. In the end they were deadlocked, so they asked me and I told them, real quiet, 'In da Club'.\" – 50 Cent}}\n\nReleased in 2003, it reached No. 76 in the US, becoming 50 Cent's sixth Hot 100 entry, but nonetheless his weakest charting single at that time. It also peaked at No. 10 in the United Kingdom as a double A-side with \"Poppin' Them Thangs\" (G-Unit). The song was written by 50 Cent and produced by Dr. Dre, with co-production from keyboardist Mike Elizondo.\n\n Music video \nAt the start there is a white man introducing 50 Cent; it then consists of video footage of 50 Cent in different concerts and documentaries. All of the members of G-Unit are seen in the video. It is very similar to the music video to Eminem's 2003 single \"Sing for the Moment\".\n\nTrack listing\n UK CD single \"If I Can't\" - 3:16\n \"Poppin' Them Thangs\" (with G-Unit) - 3:45\n \"In Da Club\" (Live in New York) - 4:52\n \"If I Can't\" (Music Video) - 3:24\n \"Poppin' Them Things\" (Music Video) - 3:48\n\n German CD single \"If I Can't\" - 3:16\n \"Poppin' Them Things\" (with G-Unit) - 3:45\n\n Australian CD single'''\n \"If I Can't\" - 3:16\n \"In Da Club\" (Live in New York) - 4:52\n \"What Up Gangsta\" (Live in New York) - 4:08\n \"If I Can't\" (Instrumental) - 3:08\n\n Charts \n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\n Remixes \n\"If I Can't\" featuring Jay Z is a bonus track on the DVD 50 Cent: The New Breed.\n\nPop Smoke sampled the tune in his song \"Hotel Lobby\", featured on the deluxe version of his debut studio album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon'', which was executive-produced by 50 Cent.\n\nReferences \n\n2003 singles\n50 Cent songs\nSongs written by 50 Cent\nSong recordings produced by Dr. Dre\nShady Records singles\nAftermath Entertainment singles\nInterscope Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Mike Elizondo",
"The International Rail Makers Association (IRMA) was a cartel for the export of rail profiles that existed (with longer interruptions) between 1883 and the Second World War.\n\nHistory \nAmong cartel specialists, IRMA is known as the oldest larger international cartel, as the \"grandmother of them all\". From the beginning, it was a quota cartel. The domestic markets were usually reserved. \n\nBecause of disappointment, the association broke up in 1886. It was revived again in 1904, but not renewed in 1907. In 1912, it was re-established but the First World War ended its operations.\n\nIn the inter-war period the rail cartel was re-established as the \"European Rail Makers Association\" (ERMA). This name change was due to the reluctance of the American producers to join officially because of fear of antitrust entanglements.\n\nThe seat of IRMA was (since at least 1926): London (11, Ironmonger Lane). IRMA became defunct due to Second World War and the subsequently aggravated US antitrust.\n\nMembers and their shares\nFor 1883, the IRMA members and their shares were as follows:\n Great Britain – 66 per cent of the available export business;\n Germany – 27 per cent;\n Belgium – 7 per cent.\nSoon after this scheme was revised to:\n Great Britain – 63.5 per cent;\n Germany – 29 per cent; \n Belgium – 7.5 per cent.\nIn 1904, the following distribution was agreed on:\n Britain – 53.5 per cent of the export trade, with priority in trade with British possessions; \n Germany – 28.83 per cent; \n Belgium – 17.01 per cent; \n France – a gradually increasing tonnage representing 4.8 per cent, 5.8 per cent, and 6.4 per cent, respectively, of the total allotments to the old members.\nIn 1912, the scheme was changed to:\n Great Britain – 33.63 per cent; \n United States – 23.13 per cent;\n Germany – 23.13 per cent; \n Belgium – 11.11 per cent;\n France – 9 per cent.\n\nFor 1927, the larger members of ERMA and their shares were as follows:\n Great Britain (whose share included that of the United States) – 43 per cent, or 430,000 tons (as compared with a British export tonnage in 1925 of 217,196 tons);\n France – 19.5 per cent, or 195,000 tons (compared with 237,002 tons in 1925);\n Germany – 19.5 per cent, or 195,000 tons (compared with 288,272 tons in 1925); \n Belgium and Luxemburg – 11 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively, or 110,000 and 70,000 * tons (compared with a joint total of 168,332 tons in 1925); \n Czecho-Slovakia – 4 per cent, or 40,000 tons.\nSmaller members were: Poland, Austria, Hungary, Italy and some independent business groups.\n\nReferences \n\nInternational transport organizations\nRailway associations"
] |
[
"50 Cent",
"2000-01: Shooting",
"what happened with 50 cent in 2001?",
"I don't know."
] | C_63224f60b00c4d6caa2cb49528bbe8dc_1 | did anything significant happen in 2000? | 2 | did anything significant happen with 50 cent in 2000? | 50 Cent | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. After Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". After using a walker for six weeks, Jackson was fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq. CANNOTANSWER | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. | Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor and entrepreneur. Known for his impact in the hip hop industry, he has been described as a "master of the nuanced art of lyrical brevity".
Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began selling drugs at age 12 during the 1980s crack epidemic. He later began pursuing a musical career and in 2000 he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records, but days before the planned release he was shot and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the compilation album Guess Who's Back?, he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre (who produced his first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin'), 50 Cent became one of the world's best selling rappers and rose to prominence as de facto leader of East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. In 2003, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre, which was released in 2005. He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.
50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). 50 Cent was ranked the sixth-best artist of the 2000s and the third-best rapper (behind Eminem and Nelly) by Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Early life
Jackson was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, and raised in its South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother Sabrina. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was 8. (online is excerpt only) Jackson revealed in an interview that his mother was a lesbian. After his mother's death and his father's departure, Jackson was raised by his grandmother.
He began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip," Jackson remembered. He sold crack during primary school. "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too ... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."
At age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs and brought guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself.The Smoking Gun: 50 Cent . The Smoking Gun (February 27, 2003). Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."
Career
1996–2002: Rise to fame, shooting, and early mixtapes
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records.Tarek, Shams (May 16, 2003). Jamaica's 'Own Bad Guy' 50 Cent Making Good in the Music Biz . Queens Press. Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, for their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks; eighteen were included on his 2000 album, Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf.Williams, Houston (February 2004). Bang'em Smurf: Life after G-Unit. AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio.50 Cent. From Pieces to Weight Part 5 . MTV. Accessed May 22, 2007. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized.
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.
Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique.
In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada.Weiner, Jonah (April 2005). Dear Superstar: 50 Cent . Blender. Accessed May 22, 2007. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
===2002–2007: Mainstream breakthrough, Get Rich or Die Tryin''', and The Massacre===
In 2002, Eminem heard Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD, received from Jackson's attorney (who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg). Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released No Mercy, No Fear. The mixtape featured one new track, "Wanksta", which appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
50 Cent released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope gave Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. In March 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, with Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joining the label, who all eventually departed the label.Chery, Carl (May 27, 2005). Pulse Report: M.O.P. Signs to G-Unit . SOHH. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Jackson expressed an interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
2007–2010: Curtis, sales battle with Kanye West, and Before I Self Destruct
In September 2007, 50 Cent released his third album, Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly-publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop.
On the September 10, 2008 episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009 and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009.
2010–2015: New musical directions, new business ventures, and Animal Ambition
In a Contactmusic.com interview, Jackson said he was working on a Eurodance album, Black Magic, inspired by European nightclubs: "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He later said he had changed his next album to The Return of the Heartless Monster after writing different material when he returned home from the Invitation Tour in 2010, shelving Black Magic. On September 3, Jackson supported Eminem on his and Jay-Z's The Home & Home Tour, performing "Crack A Bottle" with Eminem and Dr. Dre amid rumors of tension between Jackson and Dre.
He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before putting them aside, wanting his new album to have the "aggression" of Get Rich or Die Tryin. Jackson tweeted that the album was "80 percent done" and fans could expect it in the summer of 2011. It was ultimately delayed a year due to disagreements with Interscope Records, with Jackson saying that he would release it in November 2011 with a different title than Black Magic. Eminem would appear on the album, and Jackson said he was working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' "Start It Up", confirmed that he produced a song for the upcoming album.
Jackson released a song, "Outlaw", from his fifth album on the Internet on June 16, 2011. The single, produced by Cardiak, was released on iTunes on July 19 (although Jackson tweeted that it was not the album's first single). The rapper planned to write a semi-autobiographical young-adult novel about bullying, different from his previous books which focused on his life and the rules of power. According to the book's publisher, the first-person novel (about a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done") was scheduled for publication in January 2012.
In a series of tweets, Jackson said that the delay of his fifth album was due to disagreements with Interscope Records, later suggesting that it would be released in November 2011 with his headphone line (SMS by 50). He speculated to MTV News about not renewing his five-album contract with Interscope: "I don't know ... It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."
On June 20, 2011, Jackson announced the release of Before I Self Destruct II after his fifth album. Although he planned to shoot a music video for the fifth album's lead single, "I'm On It", on June 26 the video was never filmed. Jackson told Shade45, "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it." He released "Street King Energy Track #7" in September 2011 to promote Street King, his charity-based energy drink. An announcement that Jackson was shooting a music video for "Girls Go Wild", the fifth-album lead single featuring Jeremih, was made on September 28, 2011.Music Video News: IN PRODUCTION: 50 Cent f/ Jeremih – Colin Tilley . Video Static (September 28, 2011). Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
Jackson's fifth album, Street King Immortal, was initially scheduled for a summer 2012 release and postponed until November 13. Disagreements with Interscope Records about its release and promotion led to its temporary cancellation. Its first promo single, "New Day" with Dr. Dre and Alicia Keys, was released on July 27. The song was produced by Dr. Dre, mixed by Eminem and written by 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre. A solo version by Keys was leaked by her husband, Swizz Beatz. "My Life", the album's second promo single (with Eminem and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine), was released on November 26, 2012.
In January 2014, Jackson said he planned to release Animal Ambition in the first quarter of the year, followed by Street King Immortal. On February 20, he left Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope, signing with Caroline and Capitol Music Group. According to Jackson, although he owed Interscope another album, he was released from his contract because of his friendship with Eminem and Dr. Dre: "I'm a special case and situation. It's also because of the leverage of having the strong relationships with Eminem and Dr. Dre. They don't want me to be uncomfortable. They value our friendship to the point that they would never want [to jeopardize] it over that little bit of money."
That day, he announced that Animal Ambition would be released on June 3 and released its first track. The song, "Funeral", was released with a video on Forbes.com. Produced by Jake One, it is a continuation of "50 Bars" from a previous album; two more tracks were scheduled for release on March 18. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Jackson performed "Hold On" from the new album. That song and "Don't Worry 'Bout It" were released with accompanying videos on March 18. According to Jackson, prosperity would be a theme of the album: "This project, I had to search for a concept, a really good concept, in my perspective, and that was prosperity. I outlined all the things that would be a part of prosperity, positive and negative [for Animal Ambition]."
2015–present: Street King Immortal, bankruptcy, and departure from Interscope
On May 14, 2015, Jackson revealed in an interview that the first single from Street King Immortal, would be previewed Memorial Day weekend and would likely be released in June. Jackson released "Get Low" on May 20, 2015, as the intended first single from his sixth studio album, Street King Immortal. The song, produced by Remo the Hitmaker, features vocals from fellow American rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., as well as American singer Jeremih. He announced bankruptcy on July 13, 2015.
On March 31, 2017, Interscope Records released 50 Cent's final album for the label, a greatest hits album titled Best Of.
50 Cent was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In 2020, Jackson led the executive-producer duties for late rapper Pop Smoke's debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, having been one of Pop Smoke's biggest inspirations. The album was released on July 3, 2020. Jackson curated the album, desiring to finish it after Pop had died. He contacted many of the artists involved, and also features on one of the album tracks, "The Woo", which became a top ten single.
In 2020, it was reported that Jackson was producing two television series for Starz, an anthology about hip hop and a biographical drama about sports agent Nicole Lynn.
In 2021, he became one of the headliners of the music festival Golden Sand in Riviera Maya.
In a July 2021 interview with The Independent, 50 Cent confirmed that he had officially decided to shelve his Street King Immortal album after it spent a decade in development hell. He even confirmed that he plans to release a completely new project.
In August 2021, he was confirmed to be starring in the upcoming The Expendables film.
On February 13, 2022, 50 Cent was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Awards
Artistry
Jackson cites Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, The Juice Crew, EPMD and KRS-One as his rapping influences, while citing LL Cool J as an inspiration behind his writing of "21 Questions". Jackson also states that he drew influences from Nas, Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G. while working on Animal Ambition.
Business ventures
Jackson has had a highly successful business career. He is financially invested in a highly diversified variety of industries. Jackson is now involved in artist and talent management, record, television, and film production, footwear, apparel, fragrances, liquor, video games, mobile apps, book publishing, headphones, along with health drinks and dietary supplements. His broad business and investment portfolio contains investments in a variety of sectors including real estate, financial market investments, mining, boxing promotion, vodka, fragrances, consumer electronics and fashion.
He established his own record label G-Unit Records in 2003 following his mainstream success. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line for his G-Unit Clothing Company.Leeds, Jeff (December 26, 2004). $50 Million for 50 Cent . The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2007. In an interview, Jackson said his businesses had a habit of doing well as he saw all of his ventures both past and present as revolving around his alter ego.
Jackson has also started a book publishing imprint, G-Unit Books on January 4, 2007 at the Time Warner Building in New York. He has written a number of books including a memoir, From Pieces To Weight in 2005 where it sold 73,000 copies in hardcover and 14,000 copies in paperback; a crime novel and a book with Robert Greene titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power. In November 2011, Jackson released 50 Cent's Playground, a young adult fiction novel about a bullied, violent boy and his gay mother.
One of Jackson's first business ventures was a partnership with Glacéau to create an enhanced water drink called Formula 50. In October 2004, Jackson became a beverage investor when he was given a minority share in the company in exchange for becoming a spokesperson after learning that he was a fan of the beverage. The health conscious Jackson noted that he first learned of the product while at a gym in Los Angeles, and stated that "they do such a good job making water taste good." After becoming a minority shareholder and celebrity spokesperson, Jackson worked with the company to create a new grape flavored "Formula 50" variant of VitaminWater and mentioned the drinks in various songs and interviews. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for $4.1 billion and, according to Forbes, Jackson, who was a minority shareholder, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes.
Though he no longer has an equity stake in the company, Jackson continues to act as a spokesperson for VitaminWater, supporting the product including singing about it at the BET Awards and expressing his excitement over the company's continuing to allow his input on products.
He joined Right Guard to introduce a body spray (Pure 50 RGX) and endorsed Magic Stick condoms, planning to donate part of their proceeds to increasing HIV awareness. Jackson signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia, and announced plans for a dietary-supplement company in conjunction with his film Spectacular Regret in August 2007.Jokesta (August 21, 2007). 50 Cent launches dietary supplement company. Def Sounds. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
Jackson has founded two film production companies: G-Unit Films in 2003 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.For The Record: Quick News on Eminem, Ciara, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Public Enemy & More . MTV (March 23, 2007). Accessed May 22, 2007. Cheetah Vision produces low budget action thrillers for foreign film markets across the world. When G-Unit Films folded, he focused on Cheetah Vision and the company obtained $200 million in funding in 2010. In 2010, Jackson revived G-Unit Films, renaming the company to G-Unit Films and Television Inc. The company has joint ventures with Will Packer's production company Will Packer Productions and Universal Television. In over 18 months, Jackson has sold projects to six different networks. Among them was Power, a STARZ drama in which he not only co-stars but also serves as co-creator and executive producer. Power debuted in June 2014 and was renewed for a second season after one episode.
Jackson serves as a co‐star, co-creator and executive television producer of the STARZ network drama where he signed a 2-year contract with representation coming from the Agency for the Performing Arts. Ratings have been a success for Starz. with the second-season premiere being the highest-ever season with 1.43 million people tuning in live.
In 2002, Jackson filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "50 Cent" as a trademark for clothing, sound recordings, and live performances. The application was published in 2003, and registration issued in 2004. He has since filed for additional trademark registrations.
In July 2011, Jackson launched a philanthropic initiative to provide food for one billion starving people in Africa by 2016, joining Pure Growth Partners to introduce Street King. A portion of the proceeds from each Street King purchase would be used to provide a daily meal to an underprivileged child. The partnership coincides with Jackson's goal to feed a billion people in Africa during the next five years. "50 Cent and I share a common vision: to address the world's problems through smart and sustainable business models," said Chris Clarke, founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. "With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever." Jackson said, "I'm inspired by Clarke's vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It's our mission with Street King to really change children's lives around the world."Langhorne, Cyrus. (August 13, 2011) 50 Cent On "Street King" Global Takeover, "I Need Your Support" . Sohh.Com. Retrieved on October 25, 2011. In 2011, he founded SMS Audio, a consumer-electronics company selling Street by 50 headphones, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to charity. In April 2015, SMS announced new co-branding deals with Reebok and Marvel. It added those to existing partnerships with Walt Disney Parks, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, and Intel.
In 2014, Jackson became a minority shareholder in Effen Vodka, a brand of vodka produced in the Netherlands, when he invested undisclosed amount in the company Sire Spirits LLC. He currently endorses the product via his live concert performances and social media. The rapper was asked to take part in two promotional bottle signings, one in Oak Creek and another in Sun Prairie. Jackson made an appearance at Liquor Warehouse in Syracuse, New York on April 25, 2015 where he reportedly sold 1,400 bottles (277 gallons) of Jackson's signature liquor brand. Liquor Warehouse's owner George Angeloro reportedly stocked 300 cases (1,800 bottles or 357 gallons) of Effen Vodka, which sells for $30 a bottle, prior to the event.
In December 2014, Jackson signed a $78 million deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, a luxury underwear brand. The joint venture is partnered between Jackson, basketball player Carmelo Anthony, baseball player Derek Jeter and Mathias Ingvarsson, the former president of mattress company Tempur-Pedic. Jackson became the chief fashion designer for the brands single pair of Frigo boxers. In April 2015, Jackson mulled investing in Jamaica, exploring foreign investment opportunities on the island when he met with some local officials and had ongoing discussions on investment opportunities in the Montego Bay resort area.
Investments
Over the years, Jackson invested his earnings from music and celebrity endorsements in an array of privately controlled companies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. A portion of his investments lost value during the 2008 recession. In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market. Unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, Jackson postponed Before I Self-Destruct due to the severity of the economic downturn.
His Farmington mansion located on 50 Poplar Hill Drive that he tried to sell for years filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2015 listed an asking price for that property in 2012 at $10 million but was valued at $8.3 million in 2015. He first tried to sell the house in 2007 for $18.5 million, and dropped the price several times in the next five years, when it was on and off the market.
In January 2011, Jackson reportedly made $10 million after using Twitter to promote a marketing company which he was part shareholder of. His endorsements company G Unit Brands Inc. revealed through a public SEC filing controls 12.9 per cent of H&H Imports, which is a parent company of TV Goods – the firm responsible for marketing his range of headphones, Sleek by 50 Cent. Jackson bought stock in the company on November 30, 2010, a week after it offered buyers 180 million shares at 17 cents each. Jackson later made a stock recommendation on Twitter, causing its share value to rise from four cents to nearly 50 cents (32p) each, closing on Monday at 39 cents (25p). Jackson was later investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for breaching securities laws following his tweet which may have constituted allegations of Insider trading via his Pump and dump stock investment strategy.
In 2013, Jackson became a minority investor in Hang w/, a live video broadcasting mobile app used by dozens of celebrities to broadcast their daily activities and chat with fans. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times since its launch in March 2013 and had more than 1 million users . Other minority celebrity investors include former NFL player Terrell Owens and record producer Timbaland.
Mining and heavy metals
In 2008, Jackson visited a platinum, palladium and iridium mine shaft in South Africa, and met with South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe in talks of purchasing an equity stake in the mine. After his meeting with Motsepe, Jackson considered purchasing equity in the mine and launching his own line of 50 Cent branded platinum.
Boxing promotion
On July 21, 2012, Jackson became a licensed boxing promoter when he formed his new company, TMT (The Money Team). Licensed to promote in New York, he was in the process of being licensed in Nevada (where most major fights are held in the U.S.). A former amateur boxer, Jackson signed gold medalist and former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and middleweight Olympic medalist Andre Dirrell. On July 29, 2012, he and the boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., signed IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib. They unveiled plans to challenge the box-office dominance of mixed martial arts and change the landscape of boxing with TMT Promotions. Boxer Zab Judah also expressed interest in making a deal with Jackson. In December 2012, Mayweather and Jackson parted company, with Jackson taking over the promotion company and founding SMS Promotions with Gamboa, Dirrell, Dib, James Kirkland, Luis Olivares and Donte Strayhorn in his stable.
Bankruptcy
On July 13, 2015, Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91. On July 17, 2015, the Court issued an order allowing a creditor to proceed with the punitive damages phase of a trial against Jackson in a New York state court, in connection with the alleged release of a private video. His assets were listed as between $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, though he testified under oath that he is worth $4.4 million. Citing between $10 million and $50 million in debt, and the same amount in assets. Later in the week, Jackson's bankruptcy lawyers elucidated the court documents that legal fees and judgments exceeding $20 million over the past year were the primary cause of the filing.
His filings listed 32 entities that he has a stake in. The bankruptcy came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend Lastonia Leviston for invading her privacy by posting online a sex tape of her and another man. In addition, Jackson lost a dispute over a failed business deal to come to fruition to his Sleek headphones, where Jackson invested more than $2 million. An ex-partner accused Jackson of later stealing the design of the "Sleek by 50" headphones, prompting a judge to award the partner more than $17.2 million. His Connecticut bankruptcy filing states that he owns seven cars valued at more than $500,000, including a 2010 Rolls Royce and a 1966 Chevrolet Coupe. His expenses of $108,000 a month include $5,000 for gardening along with a monthly income of $185,000, mainly from royalties and income from his external businesses and investments. The court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber, and his fitness coach.
Other details in the bankruptcy documents included information about two deals that sold the right to collect royalties of on-air play of his music. Half the rights to his portfolio were sold to the British independent music publishing company Kobalt Music Group for $3 million and the other half for another $3 million with the sales of his albums allowing Jackson to own 100 percent of the rights to the master recordings while paying only for distribution. Zeisler & Zeisler, a Bridgeport law firm, represented 50 Cent in the bankruptcy, which later resulted in Jackson filing a $75 million lawsuit against his own lawyers. He stated that his lawyers did a terrible job of representing him, specifically citing the fallout of his failed venture with Sleek Audio headphones and accused Garvey Schubert Barer, a Wall Street law firm, of failing to "employ the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to confront the circumstances of the case."
Corporate positions
G-Unity Foundation Inc. – Founder
SMS Audio – CEO, founder
SK Energy – Founder
SMS Promotions – CEO, founder
Sire Spirits – Owner
Effen Vodka – former minority shareholder
Personal life
On October 13, 1996, Jackson's girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, gave birth to son Marquise Jackson. Tompkins later sued Jackson for $50 million, saying he promised to take care of her for life. The suit, with 15 causes of action, was dismissed by a judge who called it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour." The two have bickered for years, and have even taken their feud to social media many times.
Marquise's birth changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him that I didn't have with my father". He credited his son for inspiring his career and being the "motivation to go in a different direction". Despite this, the two have endured a fractured relationship that began when Jackson and Tompkins separated in 2008. Their feud has been taken to social media numerous times, including in 2020 when Jackson disclosed that he "used to" love his son. Jackson has a tattooed "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps ("The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though"), and has "50", "Southside" and "Cold World" on his back: "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me".
Jackson dated model Daphne Joy and had his second son, Sire Jackson, with her, on September 1, 2012. At the age of two years, Sire modeled for Kidz Safe, a headphone brand for kids, earning $700,000 through his contract.
In 2005, Jackson supported President George W. Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized Bush for a slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he said, he would have voted for the president. Jackson later said that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush." In September 2007, he told Time that although he would not endorse a candidate in 2008, he "liked Hillary [Clinton]".
Six months later, the rapper told MTV News that he had switched his support to Barack Obama after hearing him speak, but had lost interest in politics.MTV News, "50 cent Flip-flops: From Clinton to Obama," March 28, 2008 Asked his opinion of President Obama's May 9, 2012 endorsement of gay marriage, Jackson said, "I'm for it ... I've encouraged same-sex activities. I've engaged in fetish areas a couple times." He had been criticized for anti-gay comments in the past.Mariel Concepcion, GLAAD Calls Out 50 Cent For Anti-Gay Tweet , Billboard, September 10, 2010
Despite having numerous songs that reference drug and alcohol usage, Jackson remains teetotal, citing a bad experience with alcohol as his main reason.Forbes noted Jackson's wealth in 2007, ranking him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry. He lives in a Farmington, Connecticut, mansion formerly owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, listing it for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son (who lives on Long Island with his ex-girlfriend). The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared October 12, 2007 "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day", honoring the rapper with a proclamation and a key to the city. One of Jackson's New York homes, purchased in January 2007 for $2.4 million and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 31, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana.
In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had lost several million dollars in the stock market and, unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, had postponed Before I Self-Destruct because of the economic downturn. Jackson won a lawsuit in November 2009 against Taco Bell over the fast-food chain's use of his name without permission.
In 2016, regarding a public feud with rapper Meek Mill, he commented, "You know, he's really not that bright. The easiest thing you can do is bring other people into the statements you're saying, right, while you're writing music."
Jackson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He rejected an offer of $500,000 from the Trump campaign to make an appearance on the candidate's behalf. However, he endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, due to his dislike of Joe Biden's tax plans. A week later, he retracted his endorsement, saying on Twitter "Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him", and endorsed Biden.
Legal issues, Drugs and assault convictions
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine and a starter's pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp (where he earned his high-school equivalency diploma). According to him, he did not use cocaine.
Jackson and four members of his entourage were arrested shortly before 2 a.m. on December 31, 2002, when police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol in a parked car (which they searched due to its tinted windows) outside a Manhattan nightclub. The rapper was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Jackson was sentenced to two years' probation on July 22, 2005 for a May 2004 incident, when he was charged with three counts of assault and battery after jumping into an audience when he was hit by a water bottle.
Lawsuits
Use of image
Jackson filed a lawsuit against an advertising company, Traffix of Pearl River, New York, on July 21, 2007, for using his image in a promotion he said threatened his safety. He was alerted by a staff member to an Internet advertisement on a Myspace page. According to court documents, the advertisement had a cartoon image of the rapper with "Shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed". Although the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly resembled him and suggested that he endorsed the product. The lawsuit, calling the ad a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of Jackson's image which "quite literally call[ed] for violence against him", sought unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.50 Cent Sues over 'Shoot the Rapper'. Fox News (July 20, 2007). Retrieved December 17, 2015.
Use of name
In 2008, Jackson sued Taco Bell over an ad campaign in which it invited him to change his name for one day from 50 Cent to 79 Cent, 89 Cent, or 99 Cent, in line with pricing for some of its items, and they would donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. The case was settled out of court.
Janitor incident
While walking through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in May 2016, Jackson harassed and insulted a janitor at the airport, accusing him of being under the influence. The janitor was a hearing-impaired, autistic teenager named Andrew Farrell. The parents of the janitor had seen the viral video as disrespect and wanted to sue Jackson for his action against their child. The lawsuit was originally over one million dollars, but the parents settled for a $100,000 donation to Autism Speaks and his apology.
Bamba sample
In 2016, a judge declared that Brandon Parrott gave Dr. Dre and 50 Cent the rights to "Bamba" for the song "P.I.M.P."
Other civil and criminal matters
One of his New York homes, purchased for $2.4 million in January 2007 and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana. On August 5, 2013, Jackson pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in a Los Angeles County court. If convicted of all charges, he faced up to five years in prison and a $46,000 fine. Model-actress Daphne Joy accused Jackson of kicking her and ransacking her bedroom during an argument at her condominium in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 23. He allegedly caused $7,100 in property damage, leaving the scene before police arrived.
Judge Ann Nevins has ordered Jackson back to court because of Instagram messages he made over several months. She said Jackson was not fully clear about his funds and indicated posts of the rapper showing stacks of his money. In March 2016, Jackson claimed that he would no longer use Instagram, electing instead to have his profile page operated by someone else.
In 2020, Jackson was a subject of controversy for his involvement in a viral video of him giving money to a Burger King restaurant in New York City on behalf of a local scammer who was later arrested and charged for Bitcoin scamming and for assaulting and kidnapping his victims on April 24, 2021.
Feuds
Ja Rule
Before he signed with Interscope Records, Jackson engaged in a public dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label, Murder Inc. Records, saying that a friend robbed jewelry from Ja Rule and the latter accused him of orchestrating the robbery. Ja Rule said that the conflict stemmed from a Queens video shoot, when Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. At The Hit Factory in New York in March 2000, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates and received three stitches for a stab wound.Smith, Dominic (July 2005). 50 Cent Interview. FHM. Retrieved July 11, 2007. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying that he acted in self-defense when he thought someone reached for a gun.
An affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent suggested ties between Murder Inc. and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord suspected of involvement in the murder of Jam Master Jay and Jackson's shooting. An excerpt read:
The end of the Jackson-Ja Rule feud was confirmed in May 2011. According to Ja Rule, "I'm cool. We ain't beefing no more. We'll never collaborate. That's just what it is. You don't have to be at war with somebody, but it's also kind of like U.S. and another country that they may not get along with. We don't gotta go to war, but we're not friends either. But we can coincide inside of a world. He's doing him, and he's not thinking about me, and I'm doing me and I'm not thinking about him."
On August 7, 2015, the feud between the two rappers later reignited when Ja Rule gave a feedback to a social follower via Twitter over a similar feud between Meek Mill and Drake. Enraged, Jackson later responded with photos and comments via Instagram, only siding with Drake. The feud resurfaced three years later on January 19, 2018, when Ja Rule took to Twitter, calling out 50 Cent on social media. 50 Cent responded by purchasing and vacating the first four rows of his concert.
The Game
Although Jackson was close to The Game before the latter released his debut album, The Documentary, they grew apart. After The Documentarys release, Jackson felt that The Game was disloyal for saying that he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers (such as Nas, Jadakiss and Fat Joe) and his desire to work with artists with which G-Unit was feuding. He said that he wrote six songs for the album and did not receive proper credit, which The Game denied.
Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97. After the announcement, The Game (a guest earlier in the evening) tried to enter the building with his entourage. After they were denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg in a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.Hope, Clover (March 2, 2005). 50 Cent Cancels New York Appearance amid Shooting Inquiry . AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007. When the situation escalated, the rappers held a joint press conference announcing their reconciliation, and fans were uncertain if the rappers had staged a publicity stunt to boost sales of their recently released albums. After the situation cooled, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility and announced that they would not appear on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance The Game announced a boycott of G-Unit, which he called "G-Unot".
After the Summer Jam performance The Game recorded "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" of G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella Records, for the mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 3. Jackson responded with his "Piggy Bank" music video, with The Game as Mr. Potato Head and parodies of other rivals. They have continued attacking each other, with The Game releasing two more mixtapes: Ghost Unit and a mixtape-DVD, Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin. Jackson superimposed The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for the cover of the Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21) mixtape in response to The Game's pictures of G-Unit dressed as the Village People. The Game, under contract to Aftermath Entertainment, signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although it is claimed that Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to fire him). G-Unit member Spider Loc has insulted The Game in songs, and the latter released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" attacking G-Unit and Loc. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", mocking The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle-booth segment, followed by a Game "diss" song ("SoundScan") ridiculing the 13-position drop of Banks' album Rotten Apple on the Billboard 200 chart and its disappointing second-week sales. Banks replied on his mixtape Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues with "Showtime (The Game's Over)", said that Jackson wrote half of The Documentary and ridiculed The Game's suicidal thoughts.
In October 2006, The Game made a peace overture (which was not immediately answered) to Jackson, but two days later he said on Power 106 that the peace offer was valid for only one day. In several songs on Doctor's Advocate, he implied that the feud was over. He said in July 2009 that the feud had ended with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and apologized for his actions. According to Tony Yayo, neither Jackson nor G-Unit accepted his apology and The Game has resumed his calls for a "G-Unot" boycott at concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" on Before I Self Destruct, targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. The Game responded with "Shake", poking fun at the music video for Jackson's "Candy Shop".
On August 1, 2016, 50 Cent ended his twelve-year feud with The Game when the two were in the Ace of Diamonds Strip Club and The Game said "What happened, that shit was 12 years ago."
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross began a feud with Jackson over an alleged incident at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, Jackson told news sources he did not remember seeing Ross there. Later that month Ross' "Mafia Music" was leaked on the Internet, with lyrics apparently disparaging Jackson. Several days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to "Mafia Music". The following day, Ross appeared on Shade 45 (Eminem's Sirius channel) and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video ("Warning Shot") and the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. In early February he uploaded a YouTube video in which he interviewed "Tia", the mother of one of Ross' children; according to her, Ross is in reality a correctional officer. On February 5, 2009, The Game phoned Seattle radio station KUBE. Asked about the dispute between Jackson and Ross, he sided with Jackson and offered to mediate: "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man" and "50 eating you, boy."
On his album Deeper Than Rap, Ross refers to Jackson in "In Cold Blood" and Jackson's mock funeral is part of the song's video. When the song was released, Ross said that he ended Jackson's career. "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," Jackson replied in an interview. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross." Their feud rekindled at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, where Jackson and G-Unit members Kidd Kidd, Mike Knox, Tony Yayo were seen on video attacking Gunplay (a member of Ross' Maybach Music Group). Gunplay's Maybach Music diamond necklace was stolen during the brawl, and several days later Jackson appeared at a Washington, D.C. bowling alley wearing Gunplay's chain. On January 30, 2013, Jackson tweeted that Ross' attempted drive-by shooting on his birthday three days earlier was "staged".
On August 9, 2020, 50 Cent and Rick Ross ended their feud.
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2009)
Animal Ambition (2014)
Collaborative albums
Beg for Mercy (with G-Unit) (2003)
T·O·S (Terminate on Sight)'' (with G-Unit) (2008)
Filmography
Film
Television
Appearances
Video games
References
External links
1975 births
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American fashion designers
African-American film producers
African-American investors
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American memoirists
African-American record producers
African-American male songwriters
Aftermath Entertainment artists
American book publishers (people)
American boxing promoters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of food industry companies
American corporate directors
American cosmetics businesspeople
American drink industry businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American film producers
American hip hop record producers
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American marketing businesspeople
American memoirists
American mining businesspeople
American music industry executives
American music publishers (people)
American nonprofit businesspeople
American people convicted of drug offenses
American reality television producers
American retail chief executives
American shooting survivors
American television company founders
American television executives
Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
Businesspeople in metals
Caroline Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Echo (music award) winners
Gangsta rappers
Grammy Award winners for rap music
G-Unit Records artists
JMJ Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Living people
Male actors from New York City
People from Jamaica, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Rappers from New York City
Record producers from New York (state)
Shady Records artists
Shoe designers
Songwriters from New York (state)
Sony Music Publishing artists
Stabbing attacks in the United States
Stabbing survivors
Television producers from New York City
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Queens, New York | true | [
"Anything Can Happen is a 1952 comedy-drama film.\n\nAnything Can Happen may also refer to:\n\n Anything Can Happen (album), by Leon Russell, 1994\n \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2019 song by Saint Jhn \n Edhuvum Nadakkum ('Anything Can Happen'), a season of the Tamil TV series Marmadesam\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour\", or \"Anything Can Happen\", a 2007 song by Enter Shikari\n Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour (EP), 2004\n\nSee also\n \"Anything Could Happen\", a 2012 song by Ellie Goulding \n Anything Might Happen, 1934 British crime film\n Special Effects: Anything Can Happen, a 1996 American documentary film\n \"Anything Can Happen on Halloween\", a song from the 1986 film The Worst Witch \n Anything Can Happen in the Theatre, a musical revue of works by Maury Yeston\n \"The Anything Can Happen Recurrence\", an episode of The Big Bang Theory (season 7)\n The Anupam Kher Show - Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai ('The Anupam Kher Show — Anything Can Happen') an Indian TV show",
"\"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (often shortened to \"Anything Can Happen\") is the second physical single, and third overall, by Enter Shikari and the second single to be released from their debut album Take to the Skies. It was released on 18 February 2007 for digital download and on 5 March 2007 on both CD and 7\" vinyl. It is the band's highest charting single, charting at #27 in the UK single chart, and number 1 on the UK indie chart. There are two remixes of the song, Colon Open Bracket Remix and Grayedout Mix. Both are up for download on their official download store.\n\nTrack listing\n\n CD\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 4:40\n \"Kickin' Back on the Surface of Your Cheek\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 3:50\n \"Keep It on Ice\" (Rou) - 2:51\n\n 7\"\n\n \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 4:40\n \"Kickin' Back on the Surface of Your Cheek\" (Rou, Enter Shikari) - 3:50\n\nOriginal version\nIn the original version of the song, a sample is heard from the introduction of the popular 1960s TV series Stingray in which the character says \"Anything can happen in the next half hour\". This is, however, not heard in the re-recorded version.\n\nChart performance\n\nPersonnel\n\nEnter Shikari\nRoughton \"Rou\" Reynolds - vocals, electronics\nLiam \"Rory\" Clewlow - guitar\nChris Batten - bass, vocals\nRob Rolfe - drums\nProduction\nEnter Shikari - production\nJohn Mitchell - recording\nBen Humphreys - recording\nMartin Giles - mastering\nKeaton Henson - illustration, design\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Video - \"Anything Can Happen in the Next Half Hour...\" video.\n Original Video - Original video using the 2004 EP version of the song.\n Stingray Introduction - The phrase can be heard at 0:44\n\n2007 singles\nEnter Shikari songs\nSong articles missing an audio sample\n2007 songs"
] |
[
"50 Cent",
"2000-01: Shooting",
"what happened with 50 cent in 2001?",
"I don't know.",
"did anything significant happen in 2000?",
"On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica."
] | C_63224f60b00c4d6caa2cb49528bbe8dc_1 | was the attacker caught? | 3 | Was 50 cent's attacker from 2000 caught? | 50 Cent | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. After Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". After using a walker for six weeks, Jackson was fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq. CANNOTANSWER | The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. | Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor and entrepreneur. Known for his impact in the hip hop industry, he has been described as a "master of the nuanced art of lyrical brevity".
Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began selling drugs at age 12 during the 1980s crack epidemic. He later began pursuing a musical career and in 2000 he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records, but days before the planned release he was shot and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the compilation album Guess Who's Back?, he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre (who produced his first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin'), 50 Cent became one of the world's best selling rappers and rose to prominence as de facto leader of East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. In 2003, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre, which was released in 2005. He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.
50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). 50 Cent was ranked the sixth-best artist of the 2000s and the third-best rapper (behind Eminem and Nelly) by Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Early life
Jackson was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, and raised in its South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother Sabrina. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was 8. (online is excerpt only) Jackson revealed in an interview that his mother was a lesbian. After his mother's death and his father's departure, Jackson was raised by his grandmother.
He began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip," Jackson remembered. He sold crack during primary school. "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too ... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."
At age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs and brought guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself.The Smoking Gun: 50 Cent . The Smoking Gun (February 27, 2003). Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."
Career
1996–2002: Rise to fame, shooting, and early mixtapes
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records.Tarek, Shams (May 16, 2003). Jamaica's 'Own Bad Guy' 50 Cent Making Good in the Music Biz . Queens Press. Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, for their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks; eighteen were included on his 2000 album, Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf.Williams, Houston (February 2004). Bang'em Smurf: Life after G-Unit. AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio.50 Cent. From Pieces to Weight Part 5 . MTV. Accessed May 22, 2007. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized.
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.
Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique.
In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada.Weiner, Jonah (April 2005). Dear Superstar: 50 Cent . Blender. Accessed May 22, 2007. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
===2002–2007: Mainstream breakthrough, Get Rich or Die Tryin''', and The Massacre===
In 2002, Eminem heard Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD, received from Jackson's attorney (who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg). Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released No Mercy, No Fear. The mixtape featured one new track, "Wanksta", which appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
50 Cent released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope gave Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. In March 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, with Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joining the label, who all eventually departed the label.Chery, Carl (May 27, 2005). Pulse Report: M.O.P. Signs to G-Unit . SOHH. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Jackson expressed an interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
2007–2010: Curtis, sales battle with Kanye West, and Before I Self Destruct
In September 2007, 50 Cent released his third album, Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly-publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop.
On the September 10, 2008 episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009 and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009.
2010–2015: New musical directions, new business ventures, and Animal Ambition
In a Contactmusic.com interview, Jackson said he was working on a Eurodance album, Black Magic, inspired by European nightclubs: "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He later said he had changed his next album to The Return of the Heartless Monster after writing different material when he returned home from the Invitation Tour in 2010, shelving Black Magic. On September 3, Jackson supported Eminem on his and Jay-Z's The Home & Home Tour, performing "Crack A Bottle" with Eminem and Dr. Dre amid rumors of tension between Jackson and Dre.
He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before putting them aside, wanting his new album to have the "aggression" of Get Rich or Die Tryin. Jackson tweeted that the album was "80 percent done" and fans could expect it in the summer of 2011. It was ultimately delayed a year due to disagreements with Interscope Records, with Jackson saying that he would release it in November 2011 with a different title than Black Magic. Eminem would appear on the album, and Jackson said he was working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' "Start It Up", confirmed that he produced a song for the upcoming album.
Jackson released a song, "Outlaw", from his fifth album on the Internet on June 16, 2011. The single, produced by Cardiak, was released on iTunes on July 19 (although Jackson tweeted that it was not the album's first single). The rapper planned to write a semi-autobiographical young-adult novel about bullying, different from his previous books which focused on his life and the rules of power. According to the book's publisher, the first-person novel (about a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done") was scheduled for publication in January 2012.
In a series of tweets, Jackson said that the delay of his fifth album was due to disagreements with Interscope Records, later suggesting that it would be released in November 2011 with his headphone line (SMS by 50). He speculated to MTV News about not renewing his five-album contract with Interscope: "I don't know ... It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."
On June 20, 2011, Jackson announced the release of Before I Self Destruct II after his fifth album. Although he planned to shoot a music video for the fifth album's lead single, "I'm On It", on June 26 the video was never filmed. Jackson told Shade45, "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it." He released "Street King Energy Track #7" in September 2011 to promote Street King, his charity-based energy drink. An announcement that Jackson was shooting a music video for "Girls Go Wild", the fifth-album lead single featuring Jeremih, was made on September 28, 2011.Music Video News: IN PRODUCTION: 50 Cent f/ Jeremih – Colin Tilley . Video Static (September 28, 2011). Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
Jackson's fifth album, Street King Immortal, was initially scheduled for a summer 2012 release and postponed until November 13. Disagreements with Interscope Records about its release and promotion led to its temporary cancellation. Its first promo single, "New Day" with Dr. Dre and Alicia Keys, was released on July 27. The song was produced by Dr. Dre, mixed by Eminem and written by 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre. A solo version by Keys was leaked by her husband, Swizz Beatz. "My Life", the album's second promo single (with Eminem and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine), was released on November 26, 2012.
In January 2014, Jackson said he planned to release Animal Ambition in the first quarter of the year, followed by Street King Immortal. On February 20, he left Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope, signing with Caroline and Capitol Music Group. According to Jackson, although he owed Interscope another album, he was released from his contract because of his friendship with Eminem and Dr. Dre: "I'm a special case and situation. It's also because of the leverage of having the strong relationships with Eminem and Dr. Dre. They don't want me to be uncomfortable. They value our friendship to the point that they would never want [to jeopardize] it over that little bit of money."
That day, he announced that Animal Ambition would be released on June 3 and released its first track. The song, "Funeral", was released with a video on Forbes.com. Produced by Jake One, it is a continuation of "50 Bars" from a previous album; two more tracks were scheduled for release on March 18. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Jackson performed "Hold On" from the new album. That song and "Don't Worry 'Bout It" were released with accompanying videos on March 18. According to Jackson, prosperity would be a theme of the album: "This project, I had to search for a concept, a really good concept, in my perspective, and that was prosperity. I outlined all the things that would be a part of prosperity, positive and negative [for Animal Ambition]."
2015–present: Street King Immortal, bankruptcy, and departure from Interscope
On May 14, 2015, Jackson revealed in an interview that the first single from Street King Immortal, would be previewed Memorial Day weekend and would likely be released in June. Jackson released "Get Low" on May 20, 2015, as the intended first single from his sixth studio album, Street King Immortal. The song, produced by Remo the Hitmaker, features vocals from fellow American rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., as well as American singer Jeremih. He announced bankruptcy on July 13, 2015.
On March 31, 2017, Interscope Records released 50 Cent's final album for the label, a greatest hits album titled Best Of.
50 Cent was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In 2020, Jackson led the executive-producer duties for late rapper Pop Smoke's debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, having been one of Pop Smoke's biggest inspirations. The album was released on July 3, 2020. Jackson curated the album, desiring to finish it after Pop had died. He contacted many of the artists involved, and also features on one of the album tracks, "The Woo", which became a top ten single.
In 2020, it was reported that Jackson was producing two television series for Starz, an anthology about hip hop and a biographical drama about sports agent Nicole Lynn.
In 2021, he became one of the headliners of the music festival Golden Sand in Riviera Maya.
In a July 2021 interview with The Independent, 50 Cent confirmed that he had officially decided to shelve his Street King Immortal album after it spent a decade in development hell. He even confirmed that he plans to release a completely new project.
In August 2021, he was confirmed to be starring in the upcoming The Expendables film.
On February 13, 2022, 50 Cent was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Awards
Artistry
Jackson cites Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, The Juice Crew, EPMD and KRS-One as his rapping influences, while citing LL Cool J as an inspiration behind his writing of "21 Questions". Jackson also states that he drew influences from Nas, Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G. while working on Animal Ambition.
Business ventures
Jackson has had a highly successful business career. He is financially invested in a highly diversified variety of industries. Jackson is now involved in artist and talent management, record, television, and film production, footwear, apparel, fragrances, liquor, video games, mobile apps, book publishing, headphones, along with health drinks and dietary supplements. His broad business and investment portfolio contains investments in a variety of sectors including real estate, financial market investments, mining, boxing promotion, vodka, fragrances, consumer electronics and fashion.
He established his own record label G-Unit Records in 2003 following his mainstream success. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line for his G-Unit Clothing Company.Leeds, Jeff (December 26, 2004). $50 Million for 50 Cent . The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2007. In an interview, Jackson said his businesses had a habit of doing well as he saw all of his ventures both past and present as revolving around his alter ego.
Jackson has also started a book publishing imprint, G-Unit Books on January 4, 2007 at the Time Warner Building in New York. He has written a number of books including a memoir, From Pieces To Weight in 2005 where it sold 73,000 copies in hardcover and 14,000 copies in paperback; a crime novel and a book with Robert Greene titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power. In November 2011, Jackson released 50 Cent's Playground, a young adult fiction novel about a bullied, violent boy and his gay mother.
One of Jackson's first business ventures was a partnership with Glacéau to create an enhanced water drink called Formula 50. In October 2004, Jackson became a beverage investor when he was given a minority share in the company in exchange for becoming a spokesperson after learning that he was a fan of the beverage. The health conscious Jackson noted that he first learned of the product while at a gym in Los Angeles, and stated that "they do such a good job making water taste good." After becoming a minority shareholder and celebrity spokesperson, Jackson worked with the company to create a new grape flavored "Formula 50" variant of VitaminWater and mentioned the drinks in various songs and interviews. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for $4.1 billion and, according to Forbes, Jackson, who was a minority shareholder, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes.
Though he no longer has an equity stake in the company, Jackson continues to act as a spokesperson for VitaminWater, supporting the product including singing about it at the BET Awards and expressing his excitement over the company's continuing to allow his input on products.
He joined Right Guard to introduce a body spray (Pure 50 RGX) and endorsed Magic Stick condoms, planning to donate part of their proceeds to increasing HIV awareness. Jackson signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia, and announced plans for a dietary-supplement company in conjunction with his film Spectacular Regret in August 2007.Jokesta (August 21, 2007). 50 Cent launches dietary supplement company. Def Sounds. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
Jackson has founded two film production companies: G-Unit Films in 2003 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.For The Record: Quick News on Eminem, Ciara, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Public Enemy & More . MTV (March 23, 2007). Accessed May 22, 2007. Cheetah Vision produces low budget action thrillers for foreign film markets across the world. When G-Unit Films folded, he focused on Cheetah Vision and the company obtained $200 million in funding in 2010. In 2010, Jackson revived G-Unit Films, renaming the company to G-Unit Films and Television Inc. The company has joint ventures with Will Packer's production company Will Packer Productions and Universal Television. In over 18 months, Jackson has sold projects to six different networks. Among them was Power, a STARZ drama in which he not only co-stars but also serves as co-creator and executive producer. Power debuted in June 2014 and was renewed for a second season after one episode.
Jackson serves as a co‐star, co-creator and executive television producer of the STARZ network drama where he signed a 2-year contract with representation coming from the Agency for the Performing Arts. Ratings have been a success for Starz. with the second-season premiere being the highest-ever season with 1.43 million people tuning in live.
In 2002, Jackson filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "50 Cent" as a trademark for clothing, sound recordings, and live performances. The application was published in 2003, and registration issued in 2004. He has since filed for additional trademark registrations.
In July 2011, Jackson launched a philanthropic initiative to provide food for one billion starving people in Africa by 2016, joining Pure Growth Partners to introduce Street King. A portion of the proceeds from each Street King purchase would be used to provide a daily meal to an underprivileged child. The partnership coincides with Jackson's goal to feed a billion people in Africa during the next five years. "50 Cent and I share a common vision: to address the world's problems through smart and sustainable business models," said Chris Clarke, founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. "With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever." Jackson said, "I'm inspired by Clarke's vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It's our mission with Street King to really change children's lives around the world."Langhorne, Cyrus. (August 13, 2011) 50 Cent On "Street King" Global Takeover, "I Need Your Support" . Sohh.Com. Retrieved on October 25, 2011. In 2011, he founded SMS Audio, a consumer-electronics company selling Street by 50 headphones, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to charity. In April 2015, SMS announced new co-branding deals with Reebok and Marvel. It added those to existing partnerships with Walt Disney Parks, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, and Intel.
In 2014, Jackson became a minority shareholder in Effen Vodka, a brand of vodka produced in the Netherlands, when he invested undisclosed amount in the company Sire Spirits LLC. He currently endorses the product via his live concert performances and social media. The rapper was asked to take part in two promotional bottle signings, one in Oak Creek and another in Sun Prairie. Jackson made an appearance at Liquor Warehouse in Syracuse, New York on April 25, 2015 where he reportedly sold 1,400 bottles (277 gallons) of Jackson's signature liquor brand. Liquor Warehouse's owner George Angeloro reportedly stocked 300 cases (1,800 bottles or 357 gallons) of Effen Vodka, which sells for $30 a bottle, prior to the event.
In December 2014, Jackson signed a $78 million deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, a luxury underwear brand. The joint venture is partnered between Jackson, basketball player Carmelo Anthony, baseball player Derek Jeter and Mathias Ingvarsson, the former president of mattress company Tempur-Pedic. Jackson became the chief fashion designer for the brands single pair of Frigo boxers. In April 2015, Jackson mulled investing in Jamaica, exploring foreign investment opportunities on the island when he met with some local officials and had ongoing discussions on investment opportunities in the Montego Bay resort area.
Investments
Over the years, Jackson invested his earnings from music and celebrity endorsements in an array of privately controlled companies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. A portion of his investments lost value during the 2008 recession. In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market. Unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, Jackson postponed Before I Self-Destruct due to the severity of the economic downturn.
His Farmington mansion located on 50 Poplar Hill Drive that he tried to sell for years filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2015 listed an asking price for that property in 2012 at $10 million but was valued at $8.3 million in 2015. He first tried to sell the house in 2007 for $18.5 million, and dropped the price several times in the next five years, when it was on and off the market.
In January 2011, Jackson reportedly made $10 million after using Twitter to promote a marketing company which he was part shareholder of. His endorsements company G Unit Brands Inc. revealed through a public SEC filing controls 12.9 per cent of H&H Imports, which is a parent company of TV Goods – the firm responsible for marketing his range of headphones, Sleek by 50 Cent. Jackson bought stock in the company on November 30, 2010, a week after it offered buyers 180 million shares at 17 cents each. Jackson later made a stock recommendation on Twitter, causing its share value to rise from four cents to nearly 50 cents (32p) each, closing on Monday at 39 cents (25p). Jackson was later investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for breaching securities laws following his tweet which may have constituted allegations of Insider trading via his Pump and dump stock investment strategy.
In 2013, Jackson became a minority investor in Hang w/, a live video broadcasting mobile app used by dozens of celebrities to broadcast their daily activities and chat with fans. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times since its launch in March 2013 and had more than 1 million users . Other minority celebrity investors include former NFL player Terrell Owens and record producer Timbaland.
Mining and heavy metals
In 2008, Jackson visited a platinum, palladium and iridium mine shaft in South Africa, and met with South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe in talks of purchasing an equity stake in the mine. After his meeting with Motsepe, Jackson considered purchasing equity in the mine and launching his own line of 50 Cent branded platinum.
Boxing promotion
On July 21, 2012, Jackson became a licensed boxing promoter when he formed his new company, TMT (The Money Team). Licensed to promote in New York, he was in the process of being licensed in Nevada (where most major fights are held in the U.S.). A former amateur boxer, Jackson signed gold medalist and former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and middleweight Olympic medalist Andre Dirrell. On July 29, 2012, he and the boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., signed IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib. They unveiled plans to challenge the box-office dominance of mixed martial arts and change the landscape of boxing with TMT Promotions. Boxer Zab Judah also expressed interest in making a deal with Jackson. In December 2012, Mayweather and Jackson parted company, with Jackson taking over the promotion company and founding SMS Promotions with Gamboa, Dirrell, Dib, James Kirkland, Luis Olivares and Donte Strayhorn in his stable.
Bankruptcy
On July 13, 2015, Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91. On July 17, 2015, the Court issued an order allowing a creditor to proceed with the punitive damages phase of a trial against Jackson in a New York state court, in connection with the alleged release of a private video. His assets were listed as between $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, though he testified under oath that he is worth $4.4 million. Citing between $10 million and $50 million in debt, and the same amount in assets. Later in the week, Jackson's bankruptcy lawyers elucidated the court documents that legal fees and judgments exceeding $20 million over the past year were the primary cause of the filing.
His filings listed 32 entities that he has a stake in. The bankruptcy came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend Lastonia Leviston for invading her privacy by posting online a sex tape of her and another man. In addition, Jackson lost a dispute over a failed business deal to come to fruition to his Sleek headphones, where Jackson invested more than $2 million. An ex-partner accused Jackson of later stealing the design of the "Sleek by 50" headphones, prompting a judge to award the partner more than $17.2 million. His Connecticut bankruptcy filing states that he owns seven cars valued at more than $500,000, including a 2010 Rolls Royce and a 1966 Chevrolet Coupe. His expenses of $108,000 a month include $5,000 for gardening along with a monthly income of $185,000, mainly from royalties and income from his external businesses and investments. The court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber, and his fitness coach.
Other details in the bankruptcy documents included information about two deals that sold the right to collect royalties of on-air play of his music. Half the rights to his portfolio were sold to the British independent music publishing company Kobalt Music Group for $3 million and the other half for another $3 million with the sales of his albums allowing Jackson to own 100 percent of the rights to the master recordings while paying only for distribution. Zeisler & Zeisler, a Bridgeport law firm, represented 50 Cent in the bankruptcy, which later resulted in Jackson filing a $75 million lawsuit against his own lawyers. He stated that his lawyers did a terrible job of representing him, specifically citing the fallout of his failed venture with Sleek Audio headphones and accused Garvey Schubert Barer, a Wall Street law firm, of failing to "employ the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to confront the circumstances of the case."
Corporate positions
G-Unity Foundation Inc. – Founder
SMS Audio – CEO, founder
SK Energy – Founder
SMS Promotions – CEO, founder
Sire Spirits – Owner
Effen Vodka – former minority shareholder
Personal life
On October 13, 1996, Jackson's girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, gave birth to son Marquise Jackson. Tompkins later sued Jackson for $50 million, saying he promised to take care of her for life. The suit, with 15 causes of action, was dismissed by a judge who called it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour." The two have bickered for years, and have even taken their feud to social media many times.
Marquise's birth changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him that I didn't have with my father". He credited his son for inspiring his career and being the "motivation to go in a different direction". Despite this, the two have endured a fractured relationship that began when Jackson and Tompkins separated in 2008. Their feud has been taken to social media numerous times, including in 2020 when Jackson disclosed that he "used to" love his son. Jackson has a tattooed "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps ("The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though"), and has "50", "Southside" and "Cold World" on his back: "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me".
Jackson dated model Daphne Joy and had his second son, Sire Jackson, with her, on September 1, 2012. At the age of two years, Sire modeled for Kidz Safe, a headphone brand for kids, earning $700,000 through his contract.
In 2005, Jackson supported President George W. Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized Bush for a slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he said, he would have voted for the president. Jackson later said that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush." In September 2007, he told Time that although he would not endorse a candidate in 2008, he "liked Hillary [Clinton]".
Six months later, the rapper told MTV News that he had switched his support to Barack Obama after hearing him speak, but had lost interest in politics.MTV News, "50 cent Flip-flops: From Clinton to Obama," March 28, 2008 Asked his opinion of President Obama's May 9, 2012 endorsement of gay marriage, Jackson said, "I'm for it ... I've encouraged same-sex activities. I've engaged in fetish areas a couple times." He had been criticized for anti-gay comments in the past.Mariel Concepcion, GLAAD Calls Out 50 Cent For Anti-Gay Tweet , Billboard, September 10, 2010
Despite having numerous songs that reference drug and alcohol usage, Jackson remains teetotal, citing a bad experience with alcohol as his main reason.Forbes noted Jackson's wealth in 2007, ranking him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry. He lives in a Farmington, Connecticut, mansion formerly owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, listing it for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son (who lives on Long Island with his ex-girlfriend). The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared October 12, 2007 "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day", honoring the rapper with a proclamation and a key to the city. One of Jackson's New York homes, purchased in January 2007 for $2.4 million and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 31, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana.
In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had lost several million dollars in the stock market and, unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, had postponed Before I Self-Destruct because of the economic downturn. Jackson won a lawsuit in November 2009 against Taco Bell over the fast-food chain's use of his name without permission.
In 2016, regarding a public feud with rapper Meek Mill, he commented, "You know, he's really not that bright. The easiest thing you can do is bring other people into the statements you're saying, right, while you're writing music."
Jackson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He rejected an offer of $500,000 from the Trump campaign to make an appearance on the candidate's behalf. However, he endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, due to his dislike of Joe Biden's tax plans. A week later, he retracted his endorsement, saying on Twitter "Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him", and endorsed Biden.
Legal issues, Drugs and assault convictions
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine and a starter's pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp (where he earned his high-school equivalency diploma). According to him, he did not use cocaine.
Jackson and four members of his entourage were arrested shortly before 2 a.m. on December 31, 2002, when police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol in a parked car (which they searched due to its tinted windows) outside a Manhattan nightclub. The rapper was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Jackson was sentenced to two years' probation on July 22, 2005 for a May 2004 incident, when he was charged with three counts of assault and battery after jumping into an audience when he was hit by a water bottle.
Lawsuits
Use of image
Jackson filed a lawsuit against an advertising company, Traffix of Pearl River, New York, on July 21, 2007, for using his image in a promotion he said threatened his safety. He was alerted by a staff member to an Internet advertisement on a Myspace page. According to court documents, the advertisement had a cartoon image of the rapper with "Shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed". Although the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly resembled him and suggested that he endorsed the product. The lawsuit, calling the ad a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of Jackson's image which "quite literally call[ed] for violence against him", sought unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.50 Cent Sues over 'Shoot the Rapper'. Fox News (July 20, 2007). Retrieved December 17, 2015.
Use of name
In 2008, Jackson sued Taco Bell over an ad campaign in which it invited him to change his name for one day from 50 Cent to 79 Cent, 89 Cent, or 99 Cent, in line with pricing for some of its items, and they would donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. The case was settled out of court.
Janitor incident
While walking through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in May 2016, Jackson harassed and insulted a janitor at the airport, accusing him of being under the influence. The janitor was a hearing-impaired, autistic teenager named Andrew Farrell. The parents of the janitor had seen the viral video as disrespect and wanted to sue Jackson for his action against their child. The lawsuit was originally over one million dollars, but the parents settled for a $100,000 donation to Autism Speaks and his apology.
Bamba sample
In 2016, a judge declared that Brandon Parrott gave Dr. Dre and 50 Cent the rights to "Bamba" for the song "P.I.M.P."
Other civil and criminal matters
One of his New York homes, purchased for $2.4 million in January 2007 and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana. On August 5, 2013, Jackson pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in a Los Angeles County court. If convicted of all charges, he faced up to five years in prison and a $46,000 fine. Model-actress Daphne Joy accused Jackson of kicking her and ransacking her bedroom during an argument at her condominium in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 23. He allegedly caused $7,100 in property damage, leaving the scene before police arrived.
Judge Ann Nevins has ordered Jackson back to court because of Instagram messages he made over several months. She said Jackson was not fully clear about his funds and indicated posts of the rapper showing stacks of his money. In March 2016, Jackson claimed that he would no longer use Instagram, electing instead to have his profile page operated by someone else.
In 2020, Jackson was a subject of controversy for his involvement in a viral video of him giving money to a Burger King restaurant in New York City on behalf of a local scammer who was later arrested and charged for Bitcoin scamming and for assaulting and kidnapping his victims on April 24, 2021.
Feuds
Ja Rule
Before he signed with Interscope Records, Jackson engaged in a public dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label, Murder Inc. Records, saying that a friend robbed jewelry from Ja Rule and the latter accused him of orchestrating the robbery. Ja Rule said that the conflict stemmed from a Queens video shoot, when Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. At The Hit Factory in New York in March 2000, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates and received three stitches for a stab wound.Smith, Dominic (July 2005). 50 Cent Interview. FHM. Retrieved July 11, 2007. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying that he acted in self-defense when he thought someone reached for a gun.
An affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent suggested ties between Murder Inc. and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord suspected of involvement in the murder of Jam Master Jay and Jackson's shooting. An excerpt read:
The end of the Jackson-Ja Rule feud was confirmed in May 2011. According to Ja Rule, "I'm cool. We ain't beefing no more. We'll never collaborate. That's just what it is. You don't have to be at war with somebody, but it's also kind of like U.S. and another country that they may not get along with. We don't gotta go to war, but we're not friends either. But we can coincide inside of a world. He's doing him, and he's not thinking about me, and I'm doing me and I'm not thinking about him."
On August 7, 2015, the feud between the two rappers later reignited when Ja Rule gave a feedback to a social follower via Twitter over a similar feud between Meek Mill and Drake. Enraged, Jackson later responded with photos and comments via Instagram, only siding with Drake. The feud resurfaced three years later on January 19, 2018, when Ja Rule took to Twitter, calling out 50 Cent on social media. 50 Cent responded by purchasing and vacating the first four rows of his concert.
The Game
Although Jackson was close to The Game before the latter released his debut album, The Documentary, they grew apart. After The Documentarys release, Jackson felt that The Game was disloyal for saying that he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers (such as Nas, Jadakiss and Fat Joe) and his desire to work with artists with which G-Unit was feuding. He said that he wrote six songs for the album and did not receive proper credit, which The Game denied.
Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97. After the announcement, The Game (a guest earlier in the evening) tried to enter the building with his entourage. After they were denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg in a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.Hope, Clover (March 2, 2005). 50 Cent Cancels New York Appearance amid Shooting Inquiry . AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007. When the situation escalated, the rappers held a joint press conference announcing their reconciliation, and fans were uncertain if the rappers had staged a publicity stunt to boost sales of their recently released albums. After the situation cooled, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility and announced that they would not appear on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance The Game announced a boycott of G-Unit, which he called "G-Unot".
After the Summer Jam performance The Game recorded "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" of G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella Records, for the mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 3. Jackson responded with his "Piggy Bank" music video, with The Game as Mr. Potato Head and parodies of other rivals. They have continued attacking each other, with The Game releasing two more mixtapes: Ghost Unit and a mixtape-DVD, Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin. Jackson superimposed The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for the cover of the Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21) mixtape in response to The Game's pictures of G-Unit dressed as the Village People. The Game, under contract to Aftermath Entertainment, signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although it is claimed that Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to fire him). G-Unit member Spider Loc has insulted The Game in songs, and the latter released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" attacking G-Unit and Loc. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", mocking The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle-booth segment, followed by a Game "diss" song ("SoundScan") ridiculing the 13-position drop of Banks' album Rotten Apple on the Billboard 200 chart and its disappointing second-week sales. Banks replied on his mixtape Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues with "Showtime (The Game's Over)", said that Jackson wrote half of The Documentary and ridiculed The Game's suicidal thoughts.
In October 2006, The Game made a peace overture (which was not immediately answered) to Jackson, but two days later he said on Power 106 that the peace offer was valid for only one day. In several songs on Doctor's Advocate, he implied that the feud was over. He said in July 2009 that the feud had ended with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and apologized for his actions. According to Tony Yayo, neither Jackson nor G-Unit accepted his apology and The Game has resumed his calls for a "G-Unot" boycott at concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" on Before I Self Destruct, targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. The Game responded with "Shake", poking fun at the music video for Jackson's "Candy Shop".
On August 1, 2016, 50 Cent ended his twelve-year feud with The Game when the two were in the Ace of Diamonds Strip Club and The Game said "What happened, that shit was 12 years ago."
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross began a feud with Jackson over an alleged incident at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, Jackson told news sources he did not remember seeing Ross there. Later that month Ross' "Mafia Music" was leaked on the Internet, with lyrics apparently disparaging Jackson. Several days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to "Mafia Music". The following day, Ross appeared on Shade 45 (Eminem's Sirius channel) and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video ("Warning Shot") and the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. In early February he uploaded a YouTube video in which he interviewed "Tia", the mother of one of Ross' children; according to her, Ross is in reality a correctional officer. On February 5, 2009, The Game phoned Seattle radio station KUBE. Asked about the dispute between Jackson and Ross, he sided with Jackson and offered to mediate: "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man" and "50 eating you, boy."
On his album Deeper Than Rap, Ross refers to Jackson in "In Cold Blood" and Jackson's mock funeral is part of the song's video. When the song was released, Ross said that he ended Jackson's career. "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," Jackson replied in an interview. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross." Their feud rekindled at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, where Jackson and G-Unit members Kidd Kidd, Mike Knox, Tony Yayo were seen on video attacking Gunplay (a member of Ross' Maybach Music Group). Gunplay's Maybach Music diamond necklace was stolen during the brawl, and several days later Jackson appeared at a Washington, D.C. bowling alley wearing Gunplay's chain. On January 30, 2013, Jackson tweeted that Ross' attempted drive-by shooting on his birthday three days earlier was "staged".
On August 9, 2020, 50 Cent and Rick Ross ended their feud.
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2009)
Animal Ambition (2014)
Collaborative albums
Beg for Mercy (with G-Unit) (2003)
T·O·S (Terminate on Sight)'' (with G-Unit) (2008)
Filmography
Film
Television
Appearances
Video games
References
External links
1975 births
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American fashion designers
African-American film producers
African-American investors
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American memoirists
African-American record producers
African-American male songwriters
Aftermath Entertainment artists
American book publishers (people)
American boxing promoters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of food industry companies
American corporate directors
American cosmetics businesspeople
American drink industry businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American film producers
American hip hop record producers
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American marketing businesspeople
American memoirists
American mining businesspeople
American music industry executives
American music publishers (people)
American nonprofit businesspeople
American people convicted of drug offenses
American reality television producers
American retail chief executives
American shooting survivors
American television company founders
American television executives
Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
Businesspeople in metals
Caroline Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Echo (music award) winners
Gangsta rappers
Grammy Award winners for rap music
G-Unit Records artists
JMJ Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Living people
Male actors from New York City
People from Jamaica, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Rappers from New York City
Record producers from New York (state)
Shady Records artists
Shoe designers
Songwriters from New York (state)
Sony Music Publishing artists
Stabbing attacks in the United States
Stabbing survivors
Television producers from New York City
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Queens, New York | true | [
"A suicide bombing was conducted in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia on 13 November 2019, targeting the city's metropolitan police (Polrestabes) headquarters. No person other than the attacker was killed in the attack, though six others were injured. The single attacker was affiliated with the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah.\n\nBombing\nThe attack on the Medan Police's headquarters occurred on 13 November 2019, at around 8:40 AM, shortly after the conclusion of a routine morning roll call by the police officers. The explosion occurred within the grounds of the headquarters but outside the building itself. According to reports, the attacker had blended in with a group queueing to obtain certificates of good conduct before detonating the bomb in the parking lot. Other eyewitness accounts reported the attacker wearing a jacket and backpack, and that he had attempted to rush through police examination at the building's entrance.\n\nThe attacker was initially believed to be a lone wolf, and the explosion injured four police officers and two civilians aside from killing the attacker. In the aftermath of the explosion, police recovered the attacker's body parts, nails, and parts of the explosive device.\n\nPerpetrator\nThough his body was blown up, the perpetrator was identified from fingerprints as a 24-year old resident of the city, Rabbial Muslim Nasution, who had recently been an online motorcycle driver. Initial investigations explored Nasution's connections with the Islamic State-affiliated Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), and several of his family members were questioned by police. His body was buried in the city, despite objections. According to his parents-in-law, Nasution had shown a significant change in behavior in the six months leading up to the suicide attack, which police officials linked to indoctrination by a cleric, who was being sought after by Polri.\n\nPolice later reported that Nasution's wife had planned another terror attack in Bali, and she was arrested. Following further investigations, the Indonesian Police (Polri) stated that the JAD was behind the attack.\n\nReactions\nFollowing the attack, Polri launched several raids in parts of the country, and a week after the attack reported that 74 terror suspects had been apprehended - more than half of which were arrested outside North Sumatra. The Densus 88 shot dead two alleged bomb assemblers following an ambush in Deli Serdang Regency. Some of the suspects were known to have been attending training camps in Karo Regency, and weapons including improvised firearms, airsoft guns, traditional blades, and bows were confiscated.\n\nPresident of Indonesia Joko Widodo ordered for the perpetrators of the attack to be investigated and apprehended. Deputy Speaker of the People's Consultative Assembly Zulkifli Hasan commented that Polri had been caught off guard by the attack, as with the attack on security minister Wiranto.\n\nReferences\n\n2019 crimes in Indonesia\n21st century in Sumatra \nAttacks on buildings and structures in Indonesia\nAttacks on police stations in the 2010s\nIslamic terrorism in Indonesia\nIslamic terrorist incidents in 2019\n2009 suicide bombing\nNovember 2019 crimes in Asia\nSuicide bombings in 2019\nSuicide bombings in Indonesia\nTerrorist incidents in Asia in 2019\nBuilding bombings in Asia",
"The Supermarine Attacker is a British single-seat naval jet fighter designed and produced by aircraft manufacturer Supermarine for the Royal Navy's Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The type has the distinction of being the first jet fighter to enter operational service with the FAA.\n\nIn order to rapidly introduce jet aircraft to Navy service, Supermarine proposed adapting their most advanced piston-powered design, the Supermarine Spiteful, with a new fuselage for the Rolls-Royce Nene engine. Performing its maiden flight on 27 July 1946, the flight testing phase of development was protracted due to several issues, including handling difficulties. The first Attackers were introduced to FAA service in August 1951.\n\nCommon to the majority of other first-generation jet fighters, the Attacker had a relatively short service life before being replaced; this was due to increasingly advanced aircraft harnessing the jet engine being rapidly developed during the 1950s and 1960s. Despite its retirement by the FAA during 1954, only three years following its introduction, the Attacker would be adopted by the newly formed Pakistan Air Force, who would continue to operate the type possibly as late as 1964.\n\nDevelopment\n\nOrigins\n\nThe origins of the Attacker can be traced back to an wartime fighter jet project performed on behalf of the Royal Air Force (RAF). Many of the design's key features and performance requirements were stipulated under Specification E.10/44 (the E standing for experimental) issued by the Air Ministry during 1944, which had called for the development of a jet fighter furnished with a laminar flow wing and a single jet engine. In response, British aircraft manufacturer Supermarine decided to produce their own submission, which involved designing a brand new fuselage, complete with bifurcated intakes to provide airflow to the Rolls-Royce Nene turbojet engine powering the type. This fuselage was mated with the pre-existing laminar flow straight wings which had been designed for the Supermarine Spiteful, a piston-engined fighter that had been intended to replace the Supermarine Spitfire. Prior to the design being officially named Attacker, the aircraft had been originally referred to as the \"Jet Spiteful\".\n\nAs originally intended, the Attacker programme was supposed to provide an interim jet fighter to equip the RAF while another aircraft, the Gloster E.1/44, that was also powered by the same Rolls-Royce Nene engine, completed development. On 30 August 1944, an order for three prototypes was placed with Supermarine; it was stipulated that the second and third prototypes were both to be navalised. On 7 July 1945, a follow-on order for a further 24 pre-production aircraft, six for the RAF and the remaining 18 for the Fleet Air Arm (FAA), was also placed.\n\nHandling problems with the Spiteful prototype delayed progress on the jet-powered version, leading to the pre-production order of 24 being stopped, although work on the three prototypes continued. Due to the delay, the FAA instead procured a batch of 18 de Havilland Vampire Mk. 20s for the purpose of gaining experience with jet aircraft. After evaluating both the Jet Spiteful and the E.1/44, the RAF decided to reject both designs since neither aircraft offered any perceptible performance advantage over contemporary fighters such as the Gloster Meteor and the de Havilland Vampire, which were the RAF's first two operational jet aircraft.\n\nInto flight\n\nFollowing the design's rejection by the RAF, Supermarine decided to approach the Admiralty with an offer of developing a navalised version of the project. On 27 July 1946, the maiden flight of the type was performed by prototype Type 392 serial number TS409, a land-based version, by test pilot Jeffrey Quill. The Air Ministry issued Specification E.1/45 to cover production aircraft; meeting its various requirements necessitated a range of extensive modifications to be made to the design, including a revised fin and tailplane arrangement, as well as an increased internal fuel capacity. Accordingly, a large external ventral fuel tank was adopted, along with an extended dorsal fin and folding wing tips.\n\nFlight testing was largely conducted at Supermarine's newly created experimental establishment at the former RAF Chilbolton. The Attacker had several deficiencies, one of which was using the Spiteful tail-wheel undercarriage rather than a nose-wheel undercarriage, a configuration that resulted in the Attacker being considerably more difficult to land on an aircraft carrier. According to aviation author Bill Gunston, this tail-dragger undercarriage meant that, when operating from grass airfields, the jet exhaust would create a long furrow in the ground that \"three men could lie down in\". However, according to aviation periodical Flight, claims of scorched or ploughed surfaces, even grass, were exaggerated. The Attacker was neither the only nor the first jet aircraft to be equipped with such an undercarriage, which was also used on the experimental Heinkel He 178 and several early Messerschmitt Me 262 aircraft. The chief designer at Vickers-Supermarine, Mr. J. Smith, claimed that testing had validated the performance of the tail-dragger undercarriage as acceptable.\n\nOn 17 June 1947, the first navalised prototype, Type 398 TS413, conducted its first flight, flown by test pilot Mike Lithgow; occurring four years after the Meteor had performed its first flight. During November 1949, production orders on behalf of the FAA were received by Supermarine. On 5 May 1950, the first production variant of the aircraft, designated Attacker F.1, performed its first flight; one year later, deliveries of the type commenced.\n\nDesign\n\nThe Supermarine Attacker was a navalised jet-propelled fighter aircraft, the first jet-powered aircraft to be introduced into FAA service. While originally designed to a wartime requirement for the RAF, it was not introduced until the early 1950s, and was ultimately developed for use aboard aircraft carriers. For a jet aircraft, the Attacker's design was unusual, with a tail-dragger undercarriage with twin tailwheels, as well as an unswept wing. The flight controls were relatively conventional, based on those of the Spiteful. The forward position of the cockpit was well-received, and provided an exceptionally good view for the pilot.\n\nThe Attacker had a relatively strong structure, making extensive use of heavy-gauge materials, principally aluminium alloy, which were used with stressed-skin construction and supported by 24 closely spaced stringers and formers. The nose had an unusual lobster-claw structure, comprising thick laminated aluminium-alloy sheet at the top and bottom, with no stiffening members; it gave armour protection to the pilot and carried pressurisation loads. The tip of the nose was detachable to accommodate a gun camera or ballast; between this and the cockpit was an avionics bay. Aft of the cockpit was the semi-monocoque fuel tank, followed by the engine bay.\n\nIn terms of its aerodynamics, the Attacker was well streamlined, described by Flight as being \"perhaps more perfect than any other fighter\". The fuselage was continuously curved with no straight lines. It was shaped to have some of the wing's laminar flow characteristics and its lines were interrupted only by the faired cockpit canopy and the engine air intakes on either side of the cockpit. The intakes diverted the front fuselage boundary layer to prevent it entering the engine; tests with the diverters faired-over gave reduced engine performance including thrust.\n\nThe design of the wing was largely unchanged from the Spiteful, save for being slightly enlarged to match the bigger Attacker. It used split flaps along the trailing edge, as well as slotted ailerons and electrically operated trim tabs. With a single main spar and one auxiliary spar, the wing was bolted directly onto stub spar booms as there was no centre-section. The exterior skins were flush-riveted and manufactured with considerable care in an attempt to achieve the laminar flow predicted from wind tunnel tests. Flight attributed the laminar-flow wing to enabling the Attacker to exceed the maximum speed of the Spiteful by more than 100 mph. However, other reports claim that the Attacker's wing was aerodynamically inferior to the original elliptical wing of the Spitfire, possessing unfavourable characteristics such as a lower critical Mach number.\n\nThe Attacker was powered by a single Rolls-Royce Nene Mk. 101 turbojet engine; at the time, the Nene was the most powerful jet engine in the world, with a thrust of 5,000 lb. The engine was supported by a heavy box-section rear spar frame, which was braced fore and aft to the main spar. As the jet-pipe was relatively long, a manually operated variable exhaust outlet was used during engine starting to prevent jet-pipe resonances and excessive turbine temperatures. The exterior skin surrounding the intake had several louvres to regulate pressures during starting; they automatically closed to seal the engine bay after starting. The engine bay incorporated a pilot-operated fire extinguisher system. Although an automatic fuel transfer system was not originally incorporated, experience with the initial prototypes led to its incorporation.\n\nIn terms of armament, the Attacker F.1 had four 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk. V cannon; at the time, this was viewed as the standard armament for a frontline RAF fighter. These cannon were fired using electronically operated Maxifiux-Star units. The inboard cannon had a maximum capacity of 167 rounds of ammunition each, while the outboard cannon had up to 145 rounds each. External stores included two 1,000 lb bombs or four 300 lb rockets.\n\nOperational history\n\nBritain\nDuring August 1951, the Attacker entered operational service with the FAA; the first squadron to receive production aircraft was 800 Naval Air Squadron, based at RNAS Ford. Following the introduction of the Attacker F.1, two further variants of the aircraft were developed and produced for the FAA. The Attacker FB.1 was a fighter-bomber which differed little from the original F.1 model, except that it was expected to operate as a ground attack aircraft. The third, and last, variant was the Attacker FB.2, which was powered by a more capable model of the Nene engine that was accompanied by various modifications to its structure. On this model, the Supermarine Attacker was furnished with a total of eight underwing hard points, which could carry a pair of 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs or a maximum of eight unguided rockets.\n\nAcross the three variants to be adopted by the FAA, a total of 146 production Attackers would be delivered to the service. It had a relatively brief career with the FAA, none of its variants seeing any action during the type's service life with the FAA and being taken out of first-line service during 1954. The type had been replaced in front line squadrons by multiple more capable jet-propelled fighters, including the Hawker Sea Hawk and de Havilland Sea Venom. For several further years, the Attacker remained in service with squadrons of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR), the type being finally taken out of reserve service during early 1957.\n\nPakistan\nDuring the early 1950s, the newly formed Royal Pakistan Air Force (RPAF; later Pakistan Air Force) sought to acquire jet fighters. A combination of a lack of funds and political pressure that was exerted by British suppliers persuaded the service to acquire a variant of the Attacker, known as the Type 538, which was essentially a \"de-navalised\" variant of the aircraft used by the FAA.\n\nOnly a single squadron was ever equipped with these aircraft, an interceptor unit, No. 11 \"Arrows\" Squadron; it received its first Attackers during 1953. A total of 36 Attackers had been acquired when \"Arrows\" Squadron officially converted to the American-built North American F-86F Sabre on 18 January 1956. However, some sources state that Attackers were used by PAF until as late as 1964.\n\nVariants\nType 392\nPrototype land version to specification E.10/44, ordered as one of three prototypes on 30 August 1944, one built and first flown 27 July 1946.\nType 398\nPrototype navalised variant ordered on 30 August 1944, one built and first flown 17 June 1947.\nType 510\nPrototype with swept wings and tail whose development led to the Supermarine Swift.\nType 513\nPrototype second naval prototype to specification E.1/45 ordered on 30 August 1943, one built and first flown 24 January 1950.\nType 398 Attacker F.1\nProduction Nene 3 powered variant, 63 ordered on 29 October 1948 and built at South Marston, 50 built as F1 as two were cancelled and the last 11 built as FB.1s. First flight of production F.1 was on 4 April 1950.\nAttacker FB.1\nLast 11 production F 1s were built as FB 1s plus an additional aircraft ordered on 27 March 1950 to replace one aircraft destroyed on a production test flight. The FB1 had been modified from the original design to allow it to carry rocket projectiles or bombs under the wings. \nAttacker FB.2\nUpdated fighter-bomber variant powered by the Nene 102, 24 ordered on 21 November 1950, 30 ordered on 16 February 1950 and a further 30 ordered on 7 September 1950, all 84 built at South Marston. \nAttacker Mk.538\nLand based Nene 4 powered variant for the Pakistan Air Force, 36 built with the first delivered in 1953.\n\nOperators\n\nPakistan Air Force, 36 aircraft.\nNo. 11 Arrows squadron\n\nFleet Air Arm, 146 aircraft.\n736 Naval Air Squadron (Training Squadron)\n800 Naval Air Squadron\n803 Naval Air Squadron\n890 Naval Air Squadron\nRoyal Naval Volunteer Reserve\n1831 Naval Air Squadron\n1832 Naval Air Squadron\n1833 Naval Air Squadron\n1834 Naval Air Squadron\n1835 Naval Air Squadron\n\nAccidents and incidents\n On 23 May 1950, Vickers test pilot Les Colquhoun was flying the first production Attacker F.1 WA469. He was carrying out high speed tests when during one of the tests the outer portion of the starboard wing folded up and the ailerons became locked. Colquhoun decided not to eject and managed to do a high-speed landing at Chilbolton, in the course of which he used all but the last 100 yards (90m) of the runway and burst a tyre. The intact aircraft was examined so the cause of the incident could be discovered, Colquhoun was awarded the George Medal for his efforts.\n On 5 February 1953, Attacker FB.1 WA535 from RNAS Stretton crashed near Winwick, Cheshire, killing the pilot Mr Roy Edwin Collingwood.\n On 21 July 1953, Attacker FB.2 WP293 (803 NAS) from RNAS Ford, crashed at North Stoke Farm, near Arundel, Sussex, killing the pilot Lieutenant Commander William T R Smith. \n On 10 November 1955, an accident involving Attacker FB.2 WP281, claimed the life of the chief Flying Instructor, Lieutenant Commander Charles James Lavender DSC (see RNAS Stretton).\n\nSurviving aircraft\n\nFollowing its retirement from service in 1956, Attacker F.1 Serial number WA473 was placed on display on the gate at RNAS Abbotsinch. Completed at VAs South Marston factory in July 1951, it had served with 702 and 736 Naval Squadrons. In late 1961 it was moved to the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Somerset, UK.\n\nSpecifications (F.1)\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Andrews, C.F. and E.B. Morgan. Supermarine Aircraft since 1914. London: Putnam, 1987. .\n \"Attacker.\" Flight, 15 May 1947. pp. 446–450.\n Bingham, Victor. Supermarine Fighter Aircraft. Ramsbury, UK: The Crowood Press, 2004. .\n Birtles, Philip. Supermarine Attacker, Swift and Scimitar (Postwar Military Aircraft 7). London: Ian Allan, 1992. .\n Brown, Capt. Eric (CBE, DFC, AFC, RN). \"Attacker - A Belated Beginning.\" Air International, May 1982, p. 233. ISSN 0306-5634.\n Buttler, Tony. \"Database: Supermarine Attacker\". Aeroplane. Vol. 38, No. 8, Issue 448, August 2010, pp. 54–71. London: IPC.\n Gunston, Bill. \"Fighters of the Fifties: Vickers-Supermarine Attacker\". Aeroplane Monthly, March 1975.\n The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Aircraft (Part Work 1982-1985). London: Orbis Publishing, 1985.\n Mason, Francis K. The British Fighter since 1912. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1992. .\n Quill, Jeffrey (OBE, AFC, FRAeS). Spitfire - A Test Pilot’s Story. London: Arrow Books, 1989. .\n \n Sturtivant, Ray. Fleet Air Arm Fixed-Wing Aircraft since 1946. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 2004. .\n Taylor, John W.R. \"Supermarine Attacker\". Combat Aircraft of the World from 1909 to the Present. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1969. .\n Taylor, Michael J.H., ed. \"Supermarine Attacker\". Janes's Encyclopedia of Aviation, Vol. 5. Danbury, Connecticut: Grolier Educational Corporation, 1980. .\n Thetford, Owen. British Naval Aircraft since 1912. London: Putnam, Fourth edition, 1978. .\n\nExternal links\n\n Supermarine Attacker\n\n1940s British fighter aircraft\nCarrier-based aircraft\nAttacker\nSingle-engined jet aircraft\nAircraft first flown in 1946\nLow-wing aircraft"
] |
[
"50 Cent",
"2000-01: Shooting",
"what happened with 50 cent in 2001?",
"I don't know.",
"did anything significant happen in 2000?",
"On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica.",
"was the attacker caught?",
"The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later."
] | C_63224f60b00c4d6caa2cb49528bbe8dc_1 | how was the attacker killed? | 4 | how was 50 cent's attacker from 2000 killed? | 50 Cent | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. After Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". After using a walker for six weeks, Jackson was fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor and entrepreneur. Known for his impact in the hip hop industry, he has been described as a "master of the nuanced art of lyrical brevity".
Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began selling drugs at age 12 during the 1980s crack epidemic. He later began pursuing a musical career and in 2000 he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records, but days before the planned release he was shot and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the compilation album Guess Who's Back?, he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre (who produced his first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin'), 50 Cent became one of the world's best selling rappers and rose to prominence as de facto leader of East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. In 2003, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre, which was released in 2005. He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.
50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). 50 Cent was ranked the sixth-best artist of the 2000s and the third-best rapper (behind Eminem and Nelly) by Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Early life
Jackson was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, and raised in its South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother Sabrina. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was 8. (online is excerpt only) Jackson revealed in an interview that his mother was a lesbian. After his mother's death and his father's departure, Jackson was raised by his grandmother.
He began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip," Jackson remembered. He sold crack during primary school. "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too ... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."
At age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs and brought guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself.The Smoking Gun: 50 Cent . The Smoking Gun (February 27, 2003). Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."
Career
1996–2002: Rise to fame, shooting, and early mixtapes
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records.Tarek, Shams (May 16, 2003). Jamaica's 'Own Bad Guy' 50 Cent Making Good in the Music Biz . Queens Press. Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, for their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks; eighteen were included on his 2000 album, Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf.Williams, Houston (February 2004). Bang'em Smurf: Life after G-Unit. AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio.50 Cent. From Pieces to Weight Part 5 . MTV. Accessed May 22, 2007. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized.
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.
Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique.
In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada.Weiner, Jonah (April 2005). Dear Superstar: 50 Cent . Blender. Accessed May 22, 2007. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
===2002–2007: Mainstream breakthrough, Get Rich or Die Tryin''', and The Massacre===
In 2002, Eminem heard Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD, received from Jackson's attorney (who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg). Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released No Mercy, No Fear. The mixtape featured one new track, "Wanksta", which appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
50 Cent released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope gave Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. In March 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, with Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joining the label, who all eventually departed the label.Chery, Carl (May 27, 2005). Pulse Report: M.O.P. Signs to G-Unit . SOHH. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Jackson expressed an interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
2007–2010: Curtis, sales battle with Kanye West, and Before I Self Destruct
In September 2007, 50 Cent released his third album, Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly-publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop.
On the September 10, 2008 episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009 and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009.
2010–2015: New musical directions, new business ventures, and Animal Ambition
In a Contactmusic.com interview, Jackson said he was working on a Eurodance album, Black Magic, inspired by European nightclubs: "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He later said he had changed his next album to The Return of the Heartless Monster after writing different material when he returned home from the Invitation Tour in 2010, shelving Black Magic. On September 3, Jackson supported Eminem on his and Jay-Z's The Home & Home Tour, performing "Crack A Bottle" with Eminem and Dr. Dre amid rumors of tension between Jackson and Dre.
He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before putting them aside, wanting his new album to have the "aggression" of Get Rich or Die Tryin. Jackson tweeted that the album was "80 percent done" and fans could expect it in the summer of 2011. It was ultimately delayed a year due to disagreements with Interscope Records, with Jackson saying that he would release it in November 2011 with a different title than Black Magic. Eminem would appear on the album, and Jackson said he was working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' "Start It Up", confirmed that he produced a song for the upcoming album.
Jackson released a song, "Outlaw", from his fifth album on the Internet on June 16, 2011. The single, produced by Cardiak, was released on iTunes on July 19 (although Jackson tweeted that it was not the album's first single). The rapper planned to write a semi-autobiographical young-adult novel about bullying, different from his previous books which focused on his life and the rules of power. According to the book's publisher, the first-person novel (about a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done") was scheduled for publication in January 2012.
In a series of tweets, Jackson said that the delay of his fifth album was due to disagreements with Interscope Records, later suggesting that it would be released in November 2011 with his headphone line (SMS by 50). He speculated to MTV News about not renewing his five-album contract with Interscope: "I don't know ... It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."
On June 20, 2011, Jackson announced the release of Before I Self Destruct II after his fifth album. Although he planned to shoot a music video for the fifth album's lead single, "I'm On It", on June 26 the video was never filmed. Jackson told Shade45, "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it." He released "Street King Energy Track #7" in September 2011 to promote Street King, his charity-based energy drink. An announcement that Jackson was shooting a music video for "Girls Go Wild", the fifth-album lead single featuring Jeremih, was made on September 28, 2011.Music Video News: IN PRODUCTION: 50 Cent f/ Jeremih – Colin Tilley . Video Static (September 28, 2011). Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
Jackson's fifth album, Street King Immortal, was initially scheduled for a summer 2012 release and postponed until November 13. Disagreements with Interscope Records about its release and promotion led to its temporary cancellation. Its first promo single, "New Day" with Dr. Dre and Alicia Keys, was released on July 27. The song was produced by Dr. Dre, mixed by Eminem and written by 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre. A solo version by Keys was leaked by her husband, Swizz Beatz. "My Life", the album's second promo single (with Eminem and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine), was released on November 26, 2012.
In January 2014, Jackson said he planned to release Animal Ambition in the first quarter of the year, followed by Street King Immortal. On February 20, he left Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope, signing with Caroline and Capitol Music Group. According to Jackson, although he owed Interscope another album, he was released from his contract because of his friendship with Eminem and Dr. Dre: "I'm a special case and situation. It's also because of the leverage of having the strong relationships with Eminem and Dr. Dre. They don't want me to be uncomfortable. They value our friendship to the point that they would never want [to jeopardize] it over that little bit of money."
That day, he announced that Animal Ambition would be released on June 3 and released its first track. The song, "Funeral", was released with a video on Forbes.com. Produced by Jake One, it is a continuation of "50 Bars" from a previous album; two more tracks were scheduled for release on March 18. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Jackson performed "Hold On" from the new album. That song and "Don't Worry 'Bout It" were released with accompanying videos on March 18. According to Jackson, prosperity would be a theme of the album: "This project, I had to search for a concept, a really good concept, in my perspective, and that was prosperity. I outlined all the things that would be a part of prosperity, positive and negative [for Animal Ambition]."
2015–present: Street King Immortal, bankruptcy, and departure from Interscope
On May 14, 2015, Jackson revealed in an interview that the first single from Street King Immortal, would be previewed Memorial Day weekend and would likely be released in June. Jackson released "Get Low" on May 20, 2015, as the intended first single from his sixth studio album, Street King Immortal. The song, produced by Remo the Hitmaker, features vocals from fellow American rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., as well as American singer Jeremih. He announced bankruptcy on July 13, 2015.
On March 31, 2017, Interscope Records released 50 Cent's final album for the label, a greatest hits album titled Best Of.
50 Cent was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In 2020, Jackson led the executive-producer duties for late rapper Pop Smoke's debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, having been one of Pop Smoke's biggest inspirations. The album was released on July 3, 2020. Jackson curated the album, desiring to finish it after Pop had died. He contacted many of the artists involved, and also features on one of the album tracks, "The Woo", which became a top ten single.
In 2020, it was reported that Jackson was producing two television series for Starz, an anthology about hip hop and a biographical drama about sports agent Nicole Lynn.
In 2021, he became one of the headliners of the music festival Golden Sand in Riviera Maya.
In a July 2021 interview with The Independent, 50 Cent confirmed that he had officially decided to shelve his Street King Immortal album after it spent a decade in development hell. He even confirmed that he plans to release a completely new project.
In August 2021, he was confirmed to be starring in the upcoming The Expendables film.
On February 13, 2022, 50 Cent was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Awards
Artistry
Jackson cites Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, The Juice Crew, EPMD and KRS-One as his rapping influences, while citing LL Cool J as an inspiration behind his writing of "21 Questions". Jackson also states that he drew influences from Nas, Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G. while working on Animal Ambition.
Business ventures
Jackson has had a highly successful business career. He is financially invested in a highly diversified variety of industries. Jackson is now involved in artist and talent management, record, television, and film production, footwear, apparel, fragrances, liquor, video games, mobile apps, book publishing, headphones, along with health drinks and dietary supplements. His broad business and investment portfolio contains investments in a variety of sectors including real estate, financial market investments, mining, boxing promotion, vodka, fragrances, consumer electronics and fashion.
He established his own record label G-Unit Records in 2003 following his mainstream success. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line for his G-Unit Clothing Company.Leeds, Jeff (December 26, 2004). $50 Million for 50 Cent . The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2007. In an interview, Jackson said his businesses had a habit of doing well as he saw all of his ventures both past and present as revolving around his alter ego.
Jackson has also started a book publishing imprint, G-Unit Books on January 4, 2007 at the Time Warner Building in New York. He has written a number of books including a memoir, From Pieces To Weight in 2005 where it sold 73,000 copies in hardcover and 14,000 copies in paperback; a crime novel and a book with Robert Greene titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power. In November 2011, Jackson released 50 Cent's Playground, a young adult fiction novel about a bullied, violent boy and his gay mother.
One of Jackson's first business ventures was a partnership with Glacéau to create an enhanced water drink called Formula 50. In October 2004, Jackson became a beverage investor when he was given a minority share in the company in exchange for becoming a spokesperson after learning that he was a fan of the beverage. The health conscious Jackson noted that he first learned of the product while at a gym in Los Angeles, and stated that "they do such a good job making water taste good." After becoming a minority shareholder and celebrity spokesperson, Jackson worked with the company to create a new grape flavored "Formula 50" variant of VitaminWater and mentioned the drinks in various songs and interviews. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for $4.1 billion and, according to Forbes, Jackson, who was a minority shareholder, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes.
Though he no longer has an equity stake in the company, Jackson continues to act as a spokesperson for VitaminWater, supporting the product including singing about it at the BET Awards and expressing his excitement over the company's continuing to allow his input on products.
He joined Right Guard to introduce a body spray (Pure 50 RGX) and endorsed Magic Stick condoms, planning to donate part of their proceeds to increasing HIV awareness. Jackson signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia, and announced plans for a dietary-supplement company in conjunction with his film Spectacular Regret in August 2007.Jokesta (August 21, 2007). 50 Cent launches dietary supplement company. Def Sounds. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
Jackson has founded two film production companies: G-Unit Films in 2003 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.For The Record: Quick News on Eminem, Ciara, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Public Enemy & More . MTV (March 23, 2007). Accessed May 22, 2007. Cheetah Vision produces low budget action thrillers for foreign film markets across the world. When G-Unit Films folded, he focused on Cheetah Vision and the company obtained $200 million in funding in 2010. In 2010, Jackson revived G-Unit Films, renaming the company to G-Unit Films and Television Inc. The company has joint ventures with Will Packer's production company Will Packer Productions and Universal Television. In over 18 months, Jackson has sold projects to six different networks. Among them was Power, a STARZ drama in which he not only co-stars but also serves as co-creator and executive producer. Power debuted in June 2014 and was renewed for a second season after one episode.
Jackson serves as a co‐star, co-creator and executive television producer of the STARZ network drama where he signed a 2-year contract with representation coming from the Agency for the Performing Arts. Ratings have been a success for Starz. with the second-season premiere being the highest-ever season with 1.43 million people tuning in live.
In 2002, Jackson filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "50 Cent" as a trademark for clothing, sound recordings, and live performances. The application was published in 2003, and registration issued in 2004. He has since filed for additional trademark registrations.
In July 2011, Jackson launched a philanthropic initiative to provide food for one billion starving people in Africa by 2016, joining Pure Growth Partners to introduce Street King. A portion of the proceeds from each Street King purchase would be used to provide a daily meal to an underprivileged child. The partnership coincides with Jackson's goal to feed a billion people in Africa during the next five years. "50 Cent and I share a common vision: to address the world's problems through smart and sustainable business models," said Chris Clarke, founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. "With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever." Jackson said, "I'm inspired by Clarke's vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It's our mission with Street King to really change children's lives around the world."Langhorne, Cyrus. (August 13, 2011) 50 Cent On "Street King" Global Takeover, "I Need Your Support" . Sohh.Com. Retrieved on October 25, 2011. In 2011, he founded SMS Audio, a consumer-electronics company selling Street by 50 headphones, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to charity. In April 2015, SMS announced new co-branding deals with Reebok and Marvel. It added those to existing partnerships with Walt Disney Parks, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, and Intel.
In 2014, Jackson became a minority shareholder in Effen Vodka, a brand of vodka produced in the Netherlands, when he invested undisclosed amount in the company Sire Spirits LLC. He currently endorses the product via his live concert performances and social media. The rapper was asked to take part in two promotional bottle signings, one in Oak Creek and another in Sun Prairie. Jackson made an appearance at Liquor Warehouse in Syracuse, New York on April 25, 2015 where he reportedly sold 1,400 bottles (277 gallons) of Jackson's signature liquor brand. Liquor Warehouse's owner George Angeloro reportedly stocked 300 cases (1,800 bottles or 357 gallons) of Effen Vodka, which sells for $30 a bottle, prior to the event.
In December 2014, Jackson signed a $78 million deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, a luxury underwear brand. The joint venture is partnered between Jackson, basketball player Carmelo Anthony, baseball player Derek Jeter and Mathias Ingvarsson, the former president of mattress company Tempur-Pedic. Jackson became the chief fashion designer for the brands single pair of Frigo boxers. In April 2015, Jackson mulled investing in Jamaica, exploring foreign investment opportunities on the island when he met with some local officials and had ongoing discussions on investment opportunities in the Montego Bay resort area.
Investments
Over the years, Jackson invested his earnings from music and celebrity endorsements in an array of privately controlled companies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. A portion of his investments lost value during the 2008 recession. In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market. Unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, Jackson postponed Before I Self-Destruct due to the severity of the economic downturn.
His Farmington mansion located on 50 Poplar Hill Drive that he tried to sell for years filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2015 listed an asking price for that property in 2012 at $10 million but was valued at $8.3 million in 2015. He first tried to sell the house in 2007 for $18.5 million, and dropped the price several times in the next five years, when it was on and off the market.
In January 2011, Jackson reportedly made $10 million after using Twitter to promote a marketing company which he was part shareholder of. His endorsements company G Unit Brands Inc. revealed through a public SEC filing controls 12.9 per cent of H&H Imports, which is a parent company of TV Goods – the firm responsible for marketing his range of headphones, Sleek by 50 Cent. Jackson bought stock in the company on November 30, 2010, a week after it offered buyers 180 million shares at 17 cents each. Jackson later made a stock recommendation on Twitter, causing its share value to rise from four cents to nearly 50 cents (32p) each, closing on Monday at 39 cents (25p). Jackson was later investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for breaching securities laws following his tweet which may have constituted allegations of Insider trading via his Pump and dump stock investment strategy.
In 2013, Jackson became a minority investor in Hang w/, a live video broadcasting mobile app used by dozens of celebrities to broadcast their daily activities and chat with fans. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times since its launch in March 2013 and had more than 1 million users . Other minority celebrity investors include former NFL player Terrell Owens and record producer Timbaland.
Mining and heavy metals
In 2008, Jackson visited a platinum, palladium and iridium mine shaft in South Africa, and met with South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe in talks of purchasing an equity stake in the mine. After his meeting with Motsepe, Jackson considered purchasing equity in the mine and launching his own line of 50 Cent branded platinum.
Boxing promotion
On July 21, 2012, Jackson became a licensed boxing promoter when he formed his new company, TMT (The Money Team). Licensed to promote in New York, he was in the process of being licensed in Nevada (where most major fights are held in the U.S.). A former amateur boxer, Jackson signed gold medalist and former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and middleweight Olympic medalist Andre Dirrell. On July 29, 2012, he and the boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., signed IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib. They unveiled plans to challenge the box-office dominance of mixed martial arts and change the landscape of boxing with TMT Promotions. Boxer Zab Judah also expressed interest in making a deal with Jackson. In December 2012, Mayweather and Jackson parted company, with Jackson taking over the promotion company and founding SMS Promotions with Gamboa, Dirrell, Dib, James Kirkland, Luis Olivares and Donte Strayhorn in his stable.
Bankruptcy
On July 13, 2015, Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91. On July 17, 2015, the Court issued an order allowing a creditor to proceed with the punitive damages phase of a trial against Jackson in a New York state court, in connection with the alleged release of a private video. His assets were listed as between $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, though he testified under oath that he is worth $4.4 million. Citing between $10 million and $50 million in debt, and the same amount in assets. Later in the week, Jackson's bankruptcy lawyers elucidated the court documents that legal fees and judgments exceeding $20 million over the past year were the primary cause of the filing.
His filings listed 32 entities that he has a stake in. The bankruptcy came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend Lastonia Leviston for invading her privacy by posting online a sex tape of her and another man. In addition, Jackson lost a dispute over a failed business deal to come to fruition to his Sleek headphones, where Jackson invested more than $2 million. An ex-partner accused Jackson of later stealing the design of the "Sleek by 50" headphones, prompting a judge to award the partner more than $17.2 million. His Connecticut bankruptcy filing states that he owns seven cars valued at more than $500,000, including a 2010 Rolls Royce and a 1966 Chevrolet Coupe. His expenses of $108,000 a month include $5,000 for gardening along with a monthly income of $185,000, mainly from royalties and income from his external businesses and investments. The court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber, and his fitness coach.
Other details in the bankruptcy documents included information about two deals that sold the right to collect royalties of on-air play of his music. Half the rights to his portfolio were sold to the British independent music publishing company Kobalt Music Group for $3 million and the other half for another $3 million with the sales of his albums allowing Jackson to own 100 percent of the rights to the master recordings while paying only for distribution. Zeisler & Zeisler, a Bridgeport law firm, represented 50 Cent in the bankruptcy, which later resulted in Jackson filing a $75 million lawsuit against his own lawyers. He stated that his lawyers did a terrible job of representing him, specifically citing the fallout of his failed venture with Sleek Audio headphones and accused Garvey Schubert Barer, a Wall Street law firm, of failing to "employ the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to confront the circumstances of the case."
Corporate positions
G-Unity Foundation Inc. – Founder
SMS Audio – CEO, founder
SK Energy – Founder
SMS Promotions – CEO, founder
Sire Spirits – Owner
Effen Vodka – former minority shareholder
Personal life
On October 13, 1996, Jackson's girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, gave birth to son Marquise Jackson. Tompkins later sued Jackson for $50 million, saying he promised to take care of her for life. The suit, with 15 causes of action, was dismissed by a judge who called it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour." The two have bickered for years, and have even taken their feud to social media many times.
Marquise's birth changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him that I didn't have with my father". He credited his son for inspiring his career and being the "motivation to go in a different direction". Despite this, the two have endured a fractured relationship that began when Jackson and Tompkins separated in 2008. Their feud has been taken to social media numerous times, including in 2020 when Jackson disclosed that he "used to" love his son. Jackson has a tattooed "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps ("The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though"), and has "50", "Southside" and "Cold World" on his back: "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me".
Jackson dated model Daphne Joy and had his second son, Sire Jackson, with her, on September 1, 2012. At the age of two years, Sire modeled for Kidz Safe, a headphone brand for kids, earning $700,000 through his contract.
In 2005, Jackson supported President George W. Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized Bush for a slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he said, he would have voted for the president. Jackson later said that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush." In September 2007, he told Time that although he would not endorse a candidate in 2008, he "liked Hillary [Clinton]".
Six months later, the rapper told MTV News that he had switched his support to Barack Obama after hearing him speak, but had lost interest in politics.MTV News, "50 cent Flip-flops: From Clinton to Obama," March 28, 2008 Asked his opinion of President Obama's May 9, 2012 endorsement of gay marriage, Jackson said, "I'm for it ... I've encouraged same-sex activities. I've engaged in fetish areas a couple times." He had been criticized for anti-gay comments in the past.Mariel Concepcion, GLAAD Calls Out 50 Cent For Anti-Gay Tweet , Billboard, September 10, 2010
Despite having numerous songs that reference drug and alcohol usage, Jackson remains teetotal, citing a bad experience with alcohol as his main reason.Forbes noted Jackson's wealth in 2007, ranking him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry. He lives in a Farmington, Connecticut, mansion formerly owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, listing it for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son (who lives on Long Island with his ex-girlfriend). The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared October 12, 2007 "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day", honoring the rapper with a proclamation and a key to the city. One of Jackson's New York homes, purchased in January 2007 for $2.4 million and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 31, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana.
In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had lost several million dollars in the stock market and, unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, had postponed Before I Self-Destruct because of the economic downturn. Jackson won a lawsuit in November 2009 against Taco Bell over the fast-food chain's use of his name without permission.
In 2016, regarding a public feud with rapper Meek Mill, he commented, "You know, he's really not that bright. The easiest thing you can do is bring other people into the statements you're saying, right, while you're writing music."
Jackson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He rejected an offer of $500,000 from the Trump campaign to make an appearance on the candidate's behalf. However, he endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, due to his dislike of Joe Biden's tax plans. A week later, he retracted his endorsement, saying on Twitter "Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him", and endorsed Biden.
Legal issues, Drugs and assault convictions
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine and a starter's pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp (where he earned his high-school equivalency diploma). According to him, he did not use cocaine.
Jackson and four members of his entourage were arrested shortly before 2 a.m. on December 31, 2002, when police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol in a parked car (which they searched due to its tinted windows) outside a Manhattan nightclub. The rapper was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Jackson was sentenced to two years' probation on July 22, 2005 for a May 2004 incident, when he was charged with three counts of assault and battery after jumping into an audience when he was hit by a water bottle.
Lawsuits
Use of image
Jackson filed a lawsuit against an advertising company, Traffix of Pearl River, New York, on July 21, 2007, for using his image in a promotion he said threatened his safety. He was alerted by a staff member to an Internet advertisement on a Myspace page. According to court documents, the advertisement had a cartoon image of the rapper with "Shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed". Although the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly resembled him and suggested that he endorsed the product. The lawsuit, calling the ad a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of Jackson's image which "quite literally call[ed] for violence against him", sought unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.50 Cent Sues over 'Shoot the Rapper'. Fox News (July 20, 2007). Retrieved December 17, 2015.
Use of name
In 2008, Jackson sued Taco Bell over an ad campaign in which it invited him to change his name for one day from 50 Cent to 79 Cent, 89 Cent, or 99 Cent, in line with pricing for some of its items, and they would donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. The case was settled out of court.
Janitor incident
While walking through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in May 2016, Jackson harassed and insulted a janitor at the airport, accusing him of being under the influence. The janitor was a hearing-impaired, autistic teenager named Andrew Farrell. The parents of the janitor had seen the viral video as disrespect and wanted to sue Jackson for his action against their child. The lawsuit was originally over one million dollars, but the parents settled for a $100,000 donation to Autism Speaks and his apology.
Bamba sample
In 2016, a judge declared that Brandon Parrott gave Dr. Dre and 50 Cent the rights to "Bamba" for the song "P.I.M.P."
Other civil and criminal matters
One of his New York homes, purchased for $2.4 million in January 2007 and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana. On August 5, 2013, Jackson pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in a Los Angeles County court. If convicted of all charges, he faced up to five years in prison and a $46,000 fine. Model-actress Daphne Joy accused Jackson of kicking her and ransacking her bedroom during an argument at her condominium in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 23. He allegedly caused $7,100 in property damage, leaving the scene before police arrived.
Judge Ann Nevins has ordered Jackson back to court because of Instagram messages he made over several months. She said Jackson was not fully clear about his funds and indicated posts of the rapper showing stacks of his money. In March 2016, Jackson claimed that he would no longer use Instagram, electing instead to have his profile page operated by someone else.
In 2020, Jackson was a subject of controversy for his involvement in a viral video of him giving money to a Burger King restaurant in New York City on behalf of a local scammer who was later arrested and charged for Bitcoin scamming and for assaulting and kidnapping his victims on April 24, 2021.
Feuds
Ja Rule
Before he signed with Interscope Records, Jackson engaged in a public dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label, Murder Inc. Records, saying that a friend robbed jewelry from Ja Rule and the latter accused him of orchestrating the robbery. Ja Rule said that the conflict stemmed from a Queens video shoot, when Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. At The Hit Factory in New York in March 2000, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates and received three stitches for a stab wound.Smith, Dominic (July 2005). 50 Cent Interview. FHM. Retrieved July 11, 2007. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying that he acted in self-defense when he thought someone reached for a gun.
An affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent suggested ties between Murder Inc. and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord suspected of involvement in the murder of Jam Master Jay and Jackson's shooting. An excerpt read:
The end of the Jackson-Ja Rule feud was confirmed in May 2011. According to Ja Rule, "I'm cool. We ain't beefing no more. We'll never collaborate. That's just what it is. You don't have to be at war with somebody, but it's also kind of like U.S. and another country that they may not get along with. We don't gotta go to war, but we're not friends either. But we can coincide inside of a world. He's doing him, and he's not thinking about me, and I'm doing me and I'm not thinking about him."
On August 7, 2015, the feud between the two rappers later reignited when Ja Rule gave a feedback to a social follower via Twitter over a similar feud between Meek Mill and Drake. Enraged, Jackson later responded with photos and comments via Instagram, only siding with Drake. The feud resurfaced three years later on January 19, 2018, when Ja Rule took to Twitter, calling out 50 Cent on social media. 50 Cent responded by purchasing and vacating the first four rows of his concert.
The Game
Although Jackson was close to The Game before the latter released his debut album, The Documentary, they grew apart. After The Documentarys release, Jackson felt that The Game was disloyal for saying that he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers (such as Nas, Jadakiss and Fat Joe) and his desire to work with artists with which G-Unit was feuding. He said that he wrote six songs for the album and did not receive proper credit, which The Game denied.
Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97. After the announcement, The Game (a guest earlier in the evening) tried to enter the building with his entourage. After they were denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg in a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.Hope, Clover (March 2, 2005). 50 Cent Cancels New York Appearance amid Shooting Inquiry . AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007. When the situation escalated, the rappers held a joint press conference announcing their reconciliation, and fans were uncertain if the rappers had staged a publicity stunt to boost sales of their recently released albums. After the situation cooled, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility and announced that they would not appear on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance The Game announced a boycott of G-Unit, which he called "G-Unot".
After the Summer Jam performance The Game recorded "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" of G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella Records, for the mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 3. Jackson responded with his "Piggy Bank" music video, with The Game as Mr. Potato Head and parodies of other rivals. They have continued attacking each other, with The Game releasing two more mixtapes: Ghost Unit and a mixtape-DVD, Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin. Jackson superimposed The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for the cover of the Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21) mixtape in response to The Game's pictures of G-Unit dressed as the Village People. The Game, under contract to Aftermath Entertainment, signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although it is claimed that Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to fire him). G-Unit member Spider Loc has insulted The Game in songs, and the latter released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" attacking G-Unit and Loc. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", mocking The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle-booth segment, followed by a Game "diss" song ("SoundScan") ridiculing the 13-position drop of Banks' album Rotten Apple on the Billboard 200 chart and its disappointing second-week sales. Banks replied on his mixtape Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues with "Showtime (The Game's Over)", said that Jackson wrote half of The Documentary and ridiculed The Game's suicidal thoughts.
In October 2006, The Game made a peace overture (which was not immediately answered) to Jackson, but two days later he said on Power 106 that the peace offer was valid for only one day. In several songs on Doctor's Advocate, he implied that the feud was over. He said in July 2009 that the feud had ended with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and apologized for his actions. According to Tony Yayo, neither Jackson nor G-Unit accepted his apology and The Game has resumed his calls for a "G-Unot" boycott at concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" on Before I Self Destruct, targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. The Game responded with "Shake", poking fun at the music video for Jackson's "Candy Shop".
On August 1, 2016, 50 Cent ended his twelve-year feud with The Game when the two were in the Ace of Diamonds Strip Club and The Game said "What happened, that shit was 12 years ago."
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross began a feud with Jackson over an alleged incident at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, Jackson told news sources he did not remember seeing Ross there. Later that month Ross' "Mafia Music" was leaked on the Internet, with lyrics apparently disparaging Jackson. Several days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to "Mafia Music". The following day, Ross appeared on Shade 45 (Eminem's Sirius channel) and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video ("Warning Shot") and the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. In early February he uploaded a YouTube video in which he interviewed "Tia", the mother of one of Ross' children; according to her, Ross is in reality a correctional officer. On February 5, 2009, The Game phoned Seattle radio station KUBE. Asked about the dispute between Jackson and Ross, he sided with Jackson and offered to mediate: "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man" and "50 eating you, boy."
On his album Deeper Than Rap, Ross refers to Jackson in "In Cold Blood" and Jackson's mock funeral is part of the song's video. When the song was released, Ross said that he ended Jackson's career. "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," Jackson replied in an interview. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross." Their feud rekindled at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, where Jackson and G-Unit members Kidd Kidd, Mike Knox, Tony Yayo were seen on video attacking Gunplay (a member of Ross' Maybach Music Group). Gunplay's Maybach Music diamond necklace was stolen during the brawl, and several days later Jackson appeared at a Washington, D.C. bowling alley wearing Gunplay's chain. On January 30, 2013, Jackson tweeted that Ross' attempted drive-by shooting on his birthday three days earlier was "staged".
On August 9, 2020, 50 Cent and Rick Ross ended their feud.
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2009)
Animal Ambition (2014)
Collaborative albums
Beg for Mercy (with G-Unit) (2003)
T·O·S (Terminate on Sight)'' (with G-Unit) (2008)
Filmography
Film
Television
Appearances
Video games
References
External links
1975 births
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American fashion designers
African-American film producers
African-American investors
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American memoirists
African-American record producers
African-American male songwriters
Aftermath Entertainment artists
American book publishers (people)
American boxing promoters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of food industry companies
American corporate directors
American cosmetics businesspeople
American drink industry businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American film producers
American hip hop record producers
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American marketing businesspeople
American memoirists
American mining businesspeople
American music industry executives
American music publishers (people)
American nonprofit businesspeople
American people convicted of drug offenses
American reality television producers
American retail chief executives
American shooting survivors
American television company founders
American television executives
Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
Businesspeople in metals
Caroline Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Echo (music award) winners
Gangsta rappers
Grammy Award winners for rap music
G-Unit Records artists
JMJ Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Living people
Male actors from New York City
People from Jamaica, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Rappers from New York City
Record producers from New York (state)
Shady Records artists
Shoe designers
Songwriters from New York (state)
Sony Music Publishing artists
Stabbing attacks in the United States
Stabbing survivors
Television producers from New York City
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Queens, New York | false | [
"On 25 June 2021, a mass stabbing occurred in Würzburg, Germany. The attacker killed three civilians and wounded seven others. Minutes later, the police shot the suspect and arrested him.\n\nAttack\n\nAt about 17:00 local time, a barefoot man entered a Woolworth shop in Barbarossaplatz in central Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany. He asked the shop assistant in which part of the store the knives were displayed. There, he grabbed a large knife from the kitchen section, wounding the shop assistant. Then he started a stabbing spree, killing three customers around the shop and wounding three more. The attacker then went out of the shop, and knifed more civilians in a street and outside a bank, wounding three people. An Iranian Kurdish asylum seeker, a German soldier and a waiter confronted him defending themselves with objects, some of which were thrown at the attacker. Responding police officers then cornered the suspect in Oberthürstraße, opened fire against the knifeman, wounding him in the thigh and arresting him.\n\nVictims\n\nThree people were killed in the attack and seven more were wounded. The deceased victims were all women, all killed in the first stabbing at the shop. They were identified as an 82-year-old who was killed while defending a child whom the attacker tried to stab; a 49-year-old Brazilian who moved to Germany in early 2021 and was killed while defending her child; and a 24-year-old who was killed while buying a dress at the shop for her friend's wedding. Of the seven wounded, four were women, one a female child, one a male teenager and the other a female teenager; two were in critical conditions.\n\nSuspect\nThe suspect was identified as a 24-year-old man of Somalian nationality named Abdirahman Jibril A. Born in Mogadishu, he arrived in Italy as an asylum seeker in early 2015 and moved to Germany in May 2015. He lived in Saxony until 2019 as a regular resident, until he was moved to a refuge for homeless people in September 2019 in Würzburg. Months earlier, he had drawn the attention of authorities due to violent altercations, and had been forced into a psychiatric hospital a month before the attack, as he stopped a random car in the street and sat in it. However, he was discharged a day later as no traces of mental illness were found. His last violent incident before the mass stabbing was in January 2021, when he threatened an asylum centre's staff member and other asylum seekers with a knife, while his first one in Germany was in 2015 when he wounded a migrant during a fight. He was not however charged with a crime. Months prior, a Somali asylum seeker denounced Jibril A. to the German authorities, saying that he was \"an al-Shabaab member, who killed civilians, journalist and police officers in Somalia\". After this claim, an investigation was opened without any result in absence of proof.\n\nThere is no evidence of an accomplice, and the perpetrator appears to have operated alone.\n\nMotive\nThe motive for the attack has not been officially confirmed, however police suspect Islamic extremism as the motive for it. The Woolworth's store detective, some police officers and a number of witnesses reported hearing the attacker shout ʾAllāhu ʾakbar while committing the attack, and after the arrest he said that the attack was 'his jihad'. A police spokesman said that, while the attacker had a criminal record, none of his previous offences were related to terrorism. Police are also investigating if his release from psychiatric care was premature; however the suspect has not been diagnosed with a mental disorder. Investigators who checked his room for more evidence have not found any Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's material or religious extremist slogans. On 29 June, the Munich Prosecutor's office, in a joint statement with the Bavarian police stated that an Islamic motive was 'likely'.\n\nAftermath\nMemorial services were held in Würzburg. The citizens who attempted to disarm the attacker were celebrated in the press as heroes. \nThere have been calls for one of them - a Kurdish asylum seeker - to be given German citizenship.\n\nSee also\nWürzburg train attack\n\nReferences\n\nStabbing attacks in Germany\n2020s crimes in Germany\n2020s in Bavaria\nCrime in Bavaria\n2021 stabbing\nJune 2021 crimes in Europe\nJune 2021 events in Germany\nMass stabbings in Europe\nStabbing attacks in 2021",
"On 8 July 1959, six Viet Cong guerrillas attacked a Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) compound in Biên Hòa, a town about 20 miles (32 km) northeast of Saigon. Major Dale R. Buis (visiting from MAAG 5) and Master Sergeant Chester M. Ovnand (MAAG 7) would be among the first Americans killed in the Vietnam War. Two South Vietnamese guards were killed by the guerrillas. After the incident, MAAG personnel began carrying weapons.\n\nRaid \nThe Viet Cong attacked the mess hall, where he and five other officers were watching the film The Tattered Dress. M/Sgt Ovnand was about to switch to the next reel when VC guerrillas poked their weapons through the windows and sprayed the room with automatic weapons fire. Several 9mm rounds were fired at Ovnand. He quickly turned off the lights and went to the top of the stairs, where he was able to turn on the exterior flood lights. On the stairs, he died from his wounds. Major Buis was crawling towards the kitchen doors at the time. Buis saw the attacker coming through the kitchen doors when the exterior flood lights were swithced on. He stood up and charged at the attacker, but was only able to cover 15 feet before being fatally struck from behind. The attacker, who was about to throw his satchel charge through the door, was startled by his actions and this hesitation resulted in him blowing himself up. The Viet Cong also killed two South Vietnamese guards who were on duty that night. Captain Howard Boston (MAAG 7) and the Vietnamese cook's eight-year-old son were among those injured.\n\nReferences \n\nWar\nVietnam War"
] |
[
"50 Cent",
"2000-01: Shooting",
"what happened with 50 cent in 2001?",
"I don't know.",
"did anything significant happen in 2000?",
"On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica.",
"was the attacker caught?",
"The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.",
"how was the attacker killed?",
"I don't know."
] | C_63224f60b00c4d6caa2cb49528bbe8dc_1 | what happened after his attacker was killed? | 5 | what happened after 50 cent's attacker from 2000 was killed? | 50 Cent | On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. After Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later. Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". After using a walker for six weeks, Jackson was fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq. CANNOTANSWER | When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique. | Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975), known professionally as 50 Cent, is an American rapper, actor and entrepreneur. Known for his impact in the hip hop industry, he has been described as a "master of the nuanced art of lyrical brevity".
Born in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens, Jackson began selling drugs at age 12 during the 1980s crack epidemic. He later began pursuing a musical career and in 2000 he produced Power of the Dollar for Columbia Records, but days before the planned release he was shot and the album was never released. In 2002, after 50 Cent released the compilation album Guess Who's Back?, he was discovered by Eminem and signed to Shady Records, under the aegis of Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records.
With the aid of Eminem and Dr. Dre (who produced his first major-label album Get Rich or Die Tryin'), 50 Cent became one of the world's best selling rappers and rose to prominence as de facto leader of East Coast hip hop group G-Unit. In 2003, he founded G-Unit Records, signing his G-Unit associates Young Buck, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent had similar commercial and critical success with his second album, The Massacre, which was released in 2005. He underwent musical changes by his fifth album, Animal Ambition (2014), and is currently working on his sixth studio album. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Power (2014–2020) and is slated to produce its spin-offs.
50 Cent has sold over 30 million albums worldwide and won several awards, including a Grammy Award, thirteen Billboard Music Awards, six World Music Awards, three American Music Awards and four BET Awards. As an actor, Jackson appeared in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005), the war film Home of the Brave (2006), and the crime thriller film Righteous Kill (2008). 50 Cent was ranked the sixth-best artist of the 2000s and the third-best rapper (behind Eminem and Nelly) by Billboard. Rolling Stone ranked Get Rich or Die Tryin and "In da Club" in its lists of the "100 Best Albums of the 2000s" and "100 Best Songs of the 2000s" at numbers 37 and 13, respectively.
Early life
Jackson was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, and raised in its South Jamaica neighborhood by his mother Sabrina. A drug dealer, Sabrina raised Jackson until she died in a fire when Jackson was 8. (online is excerpt only) Jackson revealed in an interview that his mother was a lesbian. After his mother's death and his father's departure, Jackson was raised by his grandmother.
He began boxing at about age 11, and when he was 14, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local youth. "When I wasn't killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip," Jackson remembered. He sold crack during primary school. "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too ... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."
At age 12, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was in after-school programs and brought guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School: "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that ... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starting pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp and earned his GED. He has said that he did not use cocaine himself.The Smoking Gun: 50 Cent . The Smoking Gun (February 27, 2003). Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for change. The name was inspired by Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent"; Jackson chose it "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."
Career
1996–2002: Rise to fame, shooting, and early mixtapes
Jackson began rapping in a friend's basement, where he used turntables to record over instrumentals. In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC, who was establishing Jam Master Jay Records. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make records.Tarek, Shams (May 16, 2003). Jamaica's 'Own Bad Guy' 50 Cent Making Good in the Music Biz . Queens Press. Accessed May 22, 2007. Jackson's first appearance was on "React" with Onyx, for their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay for improving his ability to write hooks, and Jay produced Jackson's first (unreleased) album. In 1999, after Jackson left Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to an upstate New York studio, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks; eighteen were included on his 2000 album, Power of the Dollar. Jackson founded Hollow Point Entertainment with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf.Williams, Houston (February 2004). Bang'em Smurf: Life after G-Unit. AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007.
Jackson's popularity began to grow after the successful, controversial underground single "How to Rob", which he wrote in a half-hour car ride to a studio.50 Cent. From Pieces to Weight Part 5 . MTV. Accessed May 22, 2007. The track comically describes how he would rob famous artists. Jackson explained the song's rationale: "There's a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant". Rappers Jay-Z, Kurupt, Sticky Fingaz, Big Pun, DMX, Wyclef Jean, and the Wu-Tang Clan responded to the track, and Nas invited Jackson to join him on his Nastradamus tour. Although "How to Rob" was intended to be released with "Thug Love" (with Destiny's Child), two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, Jackson was shot and hospitalized.
On May 24, 2000, Jackson was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica. After getting into a friend's car, he was asked to return to the house to get some jewelry; his son was in the house, and his grandmother was in the front yard. Jackson returned to the back seat of the car, and another car pulled up nearby; an assailant walked up and fired nine shots at close range with a 9mm handgun. Jackson was shot in the hand, arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek. His facial wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth and a slightly slurred voice; his friend was wounded in the hand. They were driven to a hospital, where Jackson spent thirteen days. The alleged attacker, Darryl Baum, Mike Tyson's close friend and bodyguard, was killed three weeks later.
Jackson recalled the shooting: "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back .... I was scared the whole time ... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'" In his autobiography, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote: "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life ... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone". Jackson used a walker for six weeks and fully recovered after five months. When he left the hospital he stayed in the Poconos with his girlfriend and son, and his workout regime helped him develop a muscular physique.
In the hospital Jackson signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records before he was dropped from the label and blacklisted by the recording industry because of his song, "Ghetto Qu'ran". Unable to work in a U.S. studio, he went to Canada.Weiner, Jonah (April 2005). Dear Superstar: 50 Cent . Blender. Accessed May 22, 2007. With business partner Sha Money XL, Jackson recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes to build a reputation. In a HitQuarters interview, Marc Labelle of Shady Records A&R said that Jackson used the mixtape circuit to his advantage: "He took all the hottest beats from every artist and flipped them with better hooks. They then got into all the markets on the mixtapes and all the mixtape DJs were messing with them." Jackson's popularity increased, and in 2002 he released the mixtape Guess Who's Back?. He then released 50 Cent Is the Future backed by G-Unit, a mixtape revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.
===2002–2007: Mainstream breakthrough, Get Rich or Die Tryin''', and The Massacre===
In 2002, Eminem heard Jackson's Guess Who's Back? CD, received from Jackson's attorney (who was working with Eminem's manager, Paul Rosenberg). Impressed, Eminem invited Jackson to fly to Los Angeles and introduced him to Dr. Dre. After signing a $1 million record deal, Jackson released No Mercy, No Fear. The mixtape featured one new track, "Wanksta", which appeared on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack. Jackson was also signed by Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.
50 Cent released his debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (described by AllMusic as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade"), in February 2003. Rolling Stone noted its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce", with Jackson complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow". It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in its first four days. The lead single, "In da Club" (noted by The Source for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"), set a Billboard record as the most listened-to song in radio history within a week.
Interscope gave Jackson his own label, G-Unit Records, in 2003. He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo and Young Buck as members of G-Unit, and The Game was later signed in a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. In March 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre, sold 1.14 million copies in its first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle) and was number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks. He was the first solo artist with three singles in the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno" and "How We Do". According to Rolling Stone, "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus".
After The Game's departure Jackson signed Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records, with Spider Loc, M.O.P., 40 Glocc and Young Hot Rod later joining the label, who all eventually departed the label.Chery, Carl (May 27, 2005). Pulse Report: M.O.P. Signs to G-Unit . SOHH. Retrieved June 22, 2007. Jackson expressed an interest in working with rappers other than G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J of Def Jam, Mase of Bad Boy and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, and recorded with several.
2007–2010: Curtis, sales battle with Kanye West, and Before I Self Destruct
In September 2007, 50 Cent released his third album, Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin. It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 copies during its first week. It sold behind Kanye West's Graduation, released the same day; the outcome of this highly-publicized sales battle between Jackson and West has been accredited to the commercial decline of the gangsta rap and "bling era" style that previously dominated mainstream hip-hop.
On the September 10, 2008 episode of Total Request Live, Jackson said his fourth studio album, Before I Self Destruct, would be "done and released in November". He released "Ok, You're Right", produced by Dr. Dre for Before I Self Destruct, on May 18, 2009 and was scheduled to appear in a fall 2009 episode of VH1's Behind the Music. On September 3, 2009, Jackson posted a video for the Soundkillers' Phoenix- produced track, "Flight 187", introducing his mixtape and book (The 50th Law). The song, with lyrics inspiring speculation about tension between Jackson and Jay-Z, was a bonus track on the iTunes version of Before I Self Destruct. Before I Self Destruct was released on November 9, 2009.
2010–2015: New musical directions, new business ventures, and Animal Ambition
In a Contactmusic.com interview, Jackson said he was working on a Eurodance album, Black Magic, inspired by European nightclubs: "First they played hip-hop which suddenly changed to uptempo songs, known as Eurodance". He later said he had changed his next album to The Return of the Heartless Monster after writing different material when he returned home from the Invitation Tour in 2010, shelving Black Magic. On September 3, Jackson supported Eminem on his and Jay-Z's The Home & Home Tour, performing "Crack A Bottle" with Eminem and Dr. Dre amid rumors of tension between Jackson and Dre.
He "recorded 20 songs to a whole different album concept" before putting them aside, wanting his new album to have the "aggression" of Get Rich or Die Tryin. Jackson tweeted that the album was "80 percent done" and fans could expect it in the summer of 2011. It was ultimately delayed a year due to disagreements with Interscope Records, with Jackson saying that he would release it in November 2011 with a different title than Black Magic. Eminem would appear on the album, and Jackson said he was working with new producers such as Boi-1da and Alex da Kid. Cardiak, who produced Lloyd Banks' "Start It Up", confirmed that he produced a song for the upcoming album.
Jackson released a song, "Outlaw", from his fifth album on the Internet on June 16, 2011. The single, produced by Cardiak, was released on iTunes on July 19 (although Jackson tweeted that it was not the album's first single). The rapper planned to write a semi-autobiographical young-adult novel about bullying, different from his previous books which focused on his life and the rules of power. According to the book's publisher, the first-person novel (about a 13-year-old schoolyard bully "who finds redemption as he faces what he's done") was scheduled for publication in January 2012.
In a series of tweets, Jackson said that the delay of his fifth album was due to disagreements with Interscope Records, later suggesting that it would be released in November 2011 with his headphone line (SMS by 50). He speculated to MTV News about not renewing his five-album contract with Interscope: "I don't know ... It will all be clear in the negotiations following me turning this actual album in. And, of course, the performance and how they actually treat the work will determine whether you still want to stay in that position or not."
On June 20, 2011, Jackson announced the release of Before I Self Destruct II after his fifth album. Although he planned to shoot a music video for the fifth album's lead single, "I'm On It", on June 26 the video was never filmed. Jackson told Shade45, "I did four songs in Detroit with Eminem. I did two with Just Blaze, a Boi-1da joint, and I did something with Alex da Kid. We made two that are definite singles and the other two are the kinds of records that we been making, more aimed at my core audience, more aggressive, more of a different kind of energy to it." He released "Street King Energy Track #7" in September 2011 to promote Street King, his charity-based energy drink. An announcement that Jackson was shooting a music video for "Girls Go Wild", the fifth-album lead single featuring Jeremih, was made on September 28, 2011.Music Video News: IN PRODUCTION: 50 Cent f/ Jeremih – Colin Tilley . Video Static (September 28, 2011). Retrieved on October 25, 2011.
Jackson's fifth album, Street King Immortal, was initially scheduled for a summer 2012 release and postponed until November 13. Disagreements with Interscope Records about its release and promotion led to its temporary cancellation. Its first promo single, "New Day" with Dr. Dre and Alicia Keys, was released on July 27. The song was produced by Dr. Dre, mixed by Eminem and written by 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Royce da 5'9" and Dr. Dre. A solo version by Keys was leaked by her husband, Swizz Beatz. "My Life", the album's second promo single (with Eminem and Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine), was released on November 26, 2012.
In January 2014, Jackson said he planned to release Animal Ambition in the first quarter of the year, followed by Street King Immortal. On February 20, he left Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment, and Interscope, signing with Caroline and Capitol Music Group. According to Jackson, although he owed Interscope another album, he was released from his contract because of his friendship with Eminem and Dr. Dre: "I'm a special case and situation. It's also because of the leverage of having the strong relationships with Eminem and Dr. Dre. They don't want me to be uncomfortable. They value our friendship to the point that they would never want [to jeopardize] it over that little bit of money."
That day, he announced that Animal Ambition would be released on June 3 and released its first track. The song, "Funeral", was released with a video on Forbes.com. Produced by Jake One, it is a continuation of "50 Bars" from a previous album; two more tracks were scheduled for release on March 18. At South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, Jackson performed "Hold On" from the new album. That song and "Don't Worry 'Bout It" were released with accompanying videos on March 18. According to Jackson, prosperity would be a theme of the album: "This project, I had to search for a concept, a really good concept, in my perspective, and that was prosperity. I outlined all the things that would be a part of prosperity, positive and negative [for Animal Ambition]."
2015–present: Street King Immortal, bankruptcy, and departure from Interscope
On May 14, 2015, Jackson revealed in an interview that the first single from Street King Immortal, would be previewed Memorial Day weekend and would likely be released in June. Jackson released "Get Low" on May 20, 2015, as the intended first single from his sixth studio album, Street King Immortal. The song, produced by Remo the Hitmaker, features vocals from fellow American rappers 2 Chainz and T.I., as well as American singer Jeremih. He announced bankruptcy on July 13, 2015.
On March 31, 2017, Interscope Records released 50 Cent's final album for the label, a greatest hits album titled Best Of.
50 Cent was among hundreds of artists whose material was destroyed in the 2008 Universal fire.
In 2020, Jackson led the executive-producer duties for late rapper Pop Smoke's debut album, Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon, having been one of Pop Smoke's biggest inspirations. The album was released on July 3, 2020. Jackson curated the album, desiring to finish it after Pop had died. He contacted many of the artists involved, and also features on one of the album tracks, "The Woo", which became a top ten single.
In 2020, it was reported that Jackson was producing two television series for Starz, an anthology about hip hop and a biographical drama about sports agent Nicole Lynn.
In 2021, he became one of the headliners of the music festival Golden Sand in Riviera Maya.
In a July 2021 interview with The Independent, 50 Cent confirmed that he had officially decided to shelve his Street King Immortal album after it spent a decade in development hell. He even confirmed that he plans to release a completely new project.
In August 2021, he was confirmed to be starring in the upcoming The Expendables film.
On February 13, 2022, 50 Cent was a surprise performer in the Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show.
Awards
Artistry
Jackson cites Boogie Down Productions, Big Daddy Kane, The Juice Crew, EPMD and KRS-One as his rapping influences, while citing LL Cool J as an inspiration behind his writing of "21 Questions". Jackson also states that he drew influences from Nas, Rakim and The Notorious B.I.G. while working on Animal Ambition.
Business ventures
Jackson has had a highly successful business career. He is financially invested in a highly diversified variety of industries. Jackson is now involved in artist and talent management, record, television, and film production, footwear, apparel, fragrances, liquor, video games, mobile apps, book publishing, headphones, along with health drinks and dietary supplements. His broad business and investment portfolio contains investments in a variety of sectors including real estate, financial market investments, mining, boxing promotion, vodka, fragrances, consumer electronics and fashion.
He established his own record label G-Unit Records in 2003 following his mainstream success. In November 2003, he signed a five-year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line for his G-Unit Clothing Company.Leeds, Jeff (December 26, 2004). $50 Million for 50 Cent . The New York Times. Retrieved June 9, 2007. In an interview, Jackson said his businesses had a habit of doing well as he saw all of his ventures both past and present as revolving around his alter ego.
Jackson has also started a book publishing imprint, G-Unit Books on January 4, 2007 at the Time Warner Building in New York. He has written a number of books including a memoir, From Pieces To Weight in 2005 where it sold 73,000 copies in hardcover and 14,000 copies in paperback; a crime novel and a book with Robert Greene titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power. In November 2011, Jackson released 50 Cent's Playground, a young adult fiction novel about a bullied, violent boy and his gay mother.
One of Jackson's first business ventures was a partnership with Glacéau to create an enhanced water drink called Formula 50. In October 2004, Jackson became a beverage investor when he was given a minority share in the company in exchange for becoming a spokesperson after learning that he was a fan of the beverage. The health conscious Jackson noted that he first learned of the product while at a gym in Los Angeles, and stated that "they do such a good job making water taste good." After becoming a minority shareholder and celebrity spokesperson, Jackson worked with the company to create a new grape flavored "Formula 50" variant of VitaminWater and mentioned the drinks in various songs and interviews. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased Glacéau for $4.1 billion and, according to Forbes, Jackson, who was a minority shareholder, earned $100 million from the deal after taxes.
Though he no longer has an equity stake in the company, Jackson continues to act as a spokesperson for VitaminWater, supporting the product including singing about it at the BET Awards and expressing his excitement over the company's continuing to allow his input on products.
He joined Right Guard to introduce a body spray (Pure 50 RGX) and endorsed Magic Stick condoms, planning to donate part of their proceeds to increasing HIV awareness. Jackson signed a multi-year deal with Steiner Sports to sell his memorabilia, and announced plans for a dietary-supplement company in conjunction with his film Spectacular Regret in August 2007.Jokesta (August 21, 2007). 50 Cent launches dietary supplement company. Def Sounds. Retrieved August 21, 2007.
Jackson has founded two film production companies: G-Unit Films in 2003 and Cheetah Vision in 2008.For The Record: Quick News on Eminem, Ciara, Ludacris, Ne-Yo, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Nas, Public Enemy & More . MTV (March 23, 2007). Accessed May 22, 2007. Cheetah Vision produces low budget action thrillers for foreign film markets across the world. When G-Unit Films folded, he focused on Cheetah Vision and the company obtained $200 million in funding in 2010. In 2010, Jackson revived G-Unit Films, renaming the company to G-Unit Films and Television Inc. The company has joint ventures with Will Packer's production company Will Packer Productions and Universal Television. In over 18 months, Jackson has sold projects to six different networks. Among them was Power, a STARZ drama in which he not only co-stars but also serves as co-creator and executive producer. Power debuted in June 2014 and was renewed for a second season after one episode.
Jackson serves as a co‐star, co-creator and executive television producer of the STARZ network drama where he signed a 2-year contract with representation coming from the Agency for the Performing Arts. Ratings have been a success for Starz. with the second-season premiere being the highest-ever season with 1.43 million people tuning in live.
In 2002, Jackson filed an application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to register the term "50 Cent" as a trademark for clothing, sound recordings, and live performances. The application was published in 2003, and registration issued in 2004. He has since filed for additional trademark registrations.
In July 2011, Jackson launched a philanthropic initiative to provide food for one billion starving people in Africa by 2016, joining Pure Growth Partners to introduce Street King. A portion of the proceeds from each Street King purchase would be used to provide a daily meal to an underprivileged child. The partnership coincides with Jackson's goal to feed a billion people in Africa during the next five years. "50 Cent and I share a common vision: to address the world's problems through smart and sustainable business models," said Chris Clarke, founder and CEO of Pure Growth Partners. "With the rampant starvation in Africa and hunger afflicting children worldwide, we need socially responsible businesses that affect real change now more than ever." Jackson said, "I'm inspired by Clarke's vision and innovative approaches to tackling serious issues. It's our mission with Street King to really change children's lives around the world."Langhorne, Cyrus. (August 13, 2011) 50 Cent On "Street King" Global Takeover, "I Need Your Support" . Sohh.Com. Retrieved on October 25, 2011. In 2011, he founded SMS Audio, a consumer-electronics company selling Street by 50 headphones, pledging to donate a portion of their sales to charity. In April 2015, SMS announced new co-branding deals with Reebok and Marvel. It added those to existing partnerships with Walt Disney Parks, Lucasfilm's Star Wars, and Intel.
In 2014, Jackson became a minority shareholder in Effen Vodka, a brand of vodka produced in the Netherlands, when he invested undisclosed amount in the company Sire Spirits LLC. He currently endorses the product via his live concert performances and social media. The rapper was asked to take part in two promotional bottle signings, one in Oak Creek and another in Sun Prairie. Jackson made an appearance at Liquor Warehouse in Syracuse, New York on April 25, 2015 where he reportedly sold 1,400 bottles (277 gallons) of Jackson's signature liquor brand. Liquor Warehouse's owner George Angeloro reportedly stocked 300 cases (1,800 bottles or 357 gallons) of Effen Vodka, which sells for $30 a bottle, prior to the event.
In December 2014, Jackson signed a $78 million deal with FRIGO Revolution Wear, a luxury underwear brand. The joint venture is partnered between Jackson, basketball player Carmelo Anthony, baseball player Derek Jeter and Mathias Ingvarsson, the former president of mattress company Tempur-Pedic. Jackson became the chief fashion designer for the brands single pair of Frigo boxers. In April 2015, Jackson mulled investing in Jamaica, exploring foreign investment opportunities on the island when he met with some local officials and had ongoing discussions on investment opportunities in the Montego Bay resort area.
Investments
Over the years, Jackson invested his earnings from music and celebrity endorsements in an array of privately controlled companies, real estate, and stocks and bonds. A portion of his investments lost value during the 2008 recession. In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had been affected by the recession, losing several million dollars in the stock market. Unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, Jackson postponed Before I Self-Destruct due to the severity of the economic downturn.
His Farmington mansion located on 50 Poplar Hill Drive that he tried to sell for years filed for bankruptcy in Connecticut in 2015 listed an asking price for that property in 2012 at $10 million but was valued at $8.3 million in 2015. He first tried to sell the house in 2007 for $18.5 million, and dropped the price several times in the next five years, when it was on and off the market.
In January 2011, Jackson reportedly made $10 million after using Twitter to promote a marketing company which he was part shareholder of. His endorsements company G Unit Brands Inc. revealed through a public SEC filing controls 12.9 per cent of H&H Imports, which is a parent company of TV Goods – the firm responsible for marketing his range of headphones, Sleek by 50 Cent. Jackson bought stock in the company on November 30, 2010, a week after it offered buyers 180 million shares at 17 cents each. Jackson later made a stock recommendation on Twitter, causing its share value to rise from four cents to nearly 50 cents (32p) each, closing on Monday at 39 cents (25p). Jackson was later investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for breaching securities laws following his tweet which may have constituted allegations of Insider trading via his Pump and dump stock investment strategy.
In 2013, Jackson became a minority investor in Hang w/, a live video broadcasting mobile app used by dozens of celebrities to broadcast their daily activities and chat with fans. The app was downloaded more than 1 million times since its launch in March 2013 and had more than 1 million users . Other minority celebrity investors include former NFL player Terrell Owens and record producer Timbaland.
Mining and heavy metals
In 2008, Jackson visited a platinum, palladium and iridium mine shaft in South Africa, and met with South African billionaire Patrice Motsepe in talks of purchasing an equity stake in the mine. After his meeting with Motsepe, Jackson considered purchasing equity in the mine and launching his own line of 50 Cent branded platinum.
Boxing promotion
On July 21, 2012, Jackson became a licensed boxing promoter when he formed his new company, TMT (The Money Team). Licensed to promote in New York, he was in the process of being licensed in Nevada (where most major fights are held in the U.S.). A former amateur boxer, Jackson signed gold medalist and former featherweight champion Yuriorkis Gamboa and middleweight Olympic medalist Andre Dirrell. On July 29, 2012, he and the boxer Floyd Mayweather, Jr., signed IBF featherweight champion Billy Dib. They unveiled plans to challenge the box-office dominance of mixed martial arts and change the landscape of boxing with TMT Promotions. Boxer Zab Judah also expressed interest in making a deal with Jackson. In December 2012, Mayweather and Jackson parted company, with Jackson taking over the promotion company and founding SMS Promotions with Gamboa, Dirrell, Dib, James Kirkland, Luis Olivares and Donte Strayhorn in his stable.
Bankruptcy
On July 13, 2015, Jackson filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Connecticut with a debt of $32,509,549.91. On July 17, 2015, the Court issued an order allowing a creditor to proceed with the punitive damages phase of a trial against Jackson in a New York state court, in connection with the alleged release of a private video. His assets were listed as between $10 million and $50 million in his bankruptcy petition, though he testified under oath that he is worth $4.4 million. Citing between $10 million and $50 million in debt, and the same amount in assets. Later in the week, Jackson's bankruptcy lawyers elucidated the court documents that legal fees and judgments exceeding $20 million over the past year were the primary cause of the filing.
His filings listed 32 entities that he has a stake in. The bankruptcy came days after a jury ordered him to pay $5 million to rapper Rick Ross's ex-girlfriend Lastonia Leviston for invading her privacy by posting online a sex tape of her and another man. In addition, Jackson lost a dispute over a failed business deal to come to fruition to his Sleek headphones, where Jackson invested more than $2 million. An ex-partner accused Jackson of later stealing the design of the "Sleek by 50" headphones, prompting a judge to award the partner more than $17.2 million. His Connecticut bankruptcy filing states that he owns seven cars valued at more than $500,000, including a 2010 Rolls Royce and a 1966 Chevrolet Coupe. His expenses of $108,000 a month include $5,000 for gardening along with a monthly income of $185,000, mainly from royalties and income from his external businesses and investments. The court filing says he also owes money to his stylist, his barber, and his fitness coach.
Other details in the bankruptcy documents included information about two deals that sold the right to collect royalties of on-air play of his music. Half the rights to his portfolio were sold to the British independent music publishing company Kobalt Music Group for $3 million and the other half for another $3 million with the sales of his albums allowing Jackson to own 100 percent of the rights to the master recordings while paying only for distribution. Zeisler & Zeisler, a Bridgeport law firm, represented 50 Cent in the bankruptcy, which later resulted in Jackson filing a $75 million lawsuit against his own lawyers. He stated that his lawyers did a terrible job of representing him, specifically citing the fallout of his failed venture with Sleek Audio headphones and accused Garvey Schubert Barer, a Wall Street law firm, of failing to "employ the requisite knowledge and skill necessary to confront the circumstances of the case."
Corporate positions
G-Unity Foundation Inc. – Founder
SMS Audio – CEO, founder
SK Energy – Founder
SMS Promotions – CEO, founder
Sire Spirits – Owner
Effen Vodka – former minority shareholder
Personal life
On October 13, 1996, Jackson's girlfriend, Shaniqua Tompkins, gave birth to son Marquise Jackson. Tompkins later sued Jackson for $50 million, saying he promised to take care of her for life. The suit, with 15 causes of action, was dismissed by a judge who called it "an unfortunate tale of a love relationship gone sour." The two have bickered for years, and have even taken their feud to social media many times.
Marquise's birth changed Jackson's outlook on life: "When my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him that I didn't have with my father". He credited his son for inspiring his career and being the "motivation to go in a different direction". Despite this, the two have endured a fractured relationship that began when Jackson and Tompkins separated in 2008. Their feud has been taken to social media numerous times, including in 2020 when Jackson disclosed that he "used to" love his son. Jackson has a tattooed "Marquise" with an axe on his right biceps ("The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though"), and has "50", "Southside" and "Cold World" on his back: "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me".
Jackson dated model Daphne Joy and had his second son, Sire Jackson, with her, on September 1, 2012. At the age of two years, Sire modeled for Kidz Safe, a headphone brand for kids, earning $700,000 through his contract.
In 2005, Jackson supported President George W. Bush after rapper Kanye West criticized Bush for a slow response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he said, he would have voted for the president. Jackson later said that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don't aspire to be like George Bush." In September 2007, he told Time that although he would not endorse a candidate in 2008, he "liked Hillary [Clinton]".
Six months later, the rapper told MTV News that he had switched his support to Barack Obama after hearing him speak, but had lost interest in politics.MTV News, "50 cent Flip-flops: From Clinton to Obama," March 28, 2008 Asked his opinion of President Obama's May 9, 2012 endorsement of gay marriage, Jackson said, "I'm for it ... I've encouraged same-sex activities. I've engaged in fetish areas a couple times." He had been criticized for anti-gay comments in the past.Mariel Concepcion, GLAAD Calls Out 50 Cent For Anti-Gay Tweet , Billboard, September 10, 2010
Despite having numerous songs that reference drug and alcohol usage, Jackson remains teetotal, citing a bad experience with alcohol as his main reason.Forbes noted Jackson's wealth in 2007, ranking him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry. He lives in a Farmington, Connecticut, mansion formerly owned by ex-boxer Mike Tyson, listing it for sale at $18.5 million to move closer to his son (who lives on Long Island with his ex-girlfriend). The mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared October 12, 2007 "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day", honoring the rapper with a proclamation and a key to the city. One of Jackson's New York homes, purchased in January 2007 for $2.4 million and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 31, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana.
In December 2008, he told the Canadian press that he had lost several million dollars in the stock market and, unable to sell his Connecticut mansion, had postponed Before I Self-Destruct because of the economic downturn. Jackson won a lawsuit in November 2009 against Taco Bell over the fast-food chain's use of his name without permission.
In 2016, regarding a public feud with rapper Meek Mill, he commented, "You know, he's really not that bright. The easiest thing you can do is bring other people into the statements you're saying, right, while you're writing music."
Jackson endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. He rejected an offer of $500,000 from the Trump campaign to make an appearance on the candidate's behalf. However, he endorsed Donald Trump in 2020, due to his dislike of Joe Biden's tax plans. A week later, he retracted his endorsement, saying on Twitter "Fu*k Donald Trump, I never liked him", and endorsed Biden.
Legal issues, Drugs and assault convictions
On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for selling four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later, when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine and a starter's pistol. Although Jackson was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, he served six months in a boot camp (where he earned his high-school equivalency diploma). According to him, he did not use cocaine.
Jackson and four members of his entourage were arrested shortly before 2 a.m. on December 31, 2002, when police found a .25-caliber handgun and a .45-caliber pistol in a parked car (which they searched due to its tinted windows) outside a Manhattan nightclub. The rapper was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Jackson was sentenced to two years' probation on July 22, 2005 for a May 2004 incident, when he was charged with three counts of assault and battery after jumping into an audience when he was hit by a water bottle.
Lawsuits
Use of image
Jackson filed a lawsuit against an advertising company, Traffix of Pearl River, New York, on July 21, 2007, for using his image in a promotion he said threatened his safety. He was alerted by a staff member to an Internet advertisement on a Myspace page. According to court documents, the advertisement had a cartoon image of the rapper with "Shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed". Although the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly resembled him and suggested that he endorsed the product. The lawsuit, calling the ad a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of Jackson's image which "quite literally call[ed] for violence against him", sought unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.50 Cent Sues over 'Shoot the Rapper'. Fox News (July 20, 2007). Retrieved December 17, 2015.
Use of name
In 2008, Jackson sued Taco Bell over an ad campaign in which it invited him to change his name for one day from 50 Cent to 79 Cent, 89 Cent, or 99 Cent, in line with pricing for some of its items, and they would donate $10,000 to the charity of his choice. The case was settled out of court.
Janitor incident
While walking through Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport in May 2016, Jackson harassed and insulted a janitor at the airport, accusing him of being under the influence. The janitor was a hearing-impaired, autistic teenager named Andrew Farrell. The parents of the janitor had seen the viral video as disrespect and wanted to sue Jackson for his action against their child. The lawsuit was originally over one million dollars, but the parents settled for a $100,000 donation to Autism Speaks and his apology.
Bamba sample
In 2016, a judge declared that Brandon Parrott gave Dr. Dre and 50 Cent the rights to "Bamba" for the song "P.I.M.P."
Other civil and criminal matters
One of his New York homes, purchased for $2.4 million in January 2007 and the center of a lawsuit between Jackson and Shaniqua Tompkins, caught fire on May 30, 2008 while he was filming in Louisiana. On August 5, 2013, Jackson pleaded not guilty to one count of domestic violence and four counts of vandalism in a Los Angeles County court. If convicted of all charges, he faced up to five years in prison and a $46,000 fine. Model-actress Daphne Joy accused Jackson of kicking her and ransacking her bedroom during an argument at her condominium in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles on June 23. He allegedly caused $7,100 in property damage, leaving the scene before police arrived.
Judge Ann Nevins has ordered Jackson back to court because of Instagram messages he made over several months. She said Jackson was not fully clear about his funds and indicated posts of the rapper showing stacks of his money. In March 2016, Jackson claimed that he would no longer use Instagram, electing instead to have his profile page operated by someone else.
In 2020, Jackson was a subject of controversy for his involvement in a viral video of him giving money to a Burger King restaurant in New York City on behalf of a local scammer who was later arrested and charged for Bitcoin scamming and for assaulting and kidnapping his victims on April 24, 2021.
Feuds
Ja Rule
Before he signed with Interscope Records, Jackson engaged in a public dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label, Murder Inc. Records, saying that a friend robbed jewelry from Ja Rule and the latter accused him of orchestrating the robbery. Ja Rule said that the conflict stemmed from a Queens video shoot, when Jackson did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood. At The Hit Factory in New York in March 2000, Jackson had an altercation with Murder Inc. associates and received three stitches for a stab wound.Smith, Dominic (July 2005). 50 Cent Interview. FHM. Retrieved July 11, 2007. Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying that he acted in self-defense when he thought someone reached for a gun.
An affidavit by an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agent suggested ties between Murder Inc. and Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord suspected of involvement in the murder of Jam Master Jay and Jackson's shooting. An excerpt read:
The end of the Jackson-Ja Rule feud was confirmed in May 2011. According to Ja Rule, "I'm cool. We ain't beefing no more. We'll never collaborate. That's just what it is. You don't have to be at war with somebody, but it's also kind of like U.S. and another country that they may not get along with. We don't gotta go to war, but we're not friends either. But we can coincide inside of a world. He's doing him, and he's not thinking about me, and I'm doing me and I'm not thinking about him."
On August 7, 2015, the feud between the two rappers later reignited when Ja Rule gave a feedback to a social follower via Twitter over a similar feud between Meek Mill and Drake. Enraged, Jackson later responded with photos and comments via Instagram, only siding with Drake. The feud resurfaced three years later on January 19, 2018, when Ja Rule took to Twitter, calling out 50 Cent on social media. 50 Cent responded by purchasing and vacating the first four rows of his concert.
The Game
Although Jackson was close to The Game before the latter released his debut album, The Documentary, they grew apart. After The Documentarys release, Jackson felt that The Game was disloyal for saying that he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers (such as Nas, Jadakiss and Fat Joe) and his desire to work with artists with which G-Unit was feuding. He said that he wrote six songs for the album and did not receive proper credit, which The Game denied.
Jackson later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97. After the announcement, The Game (a guest earlier in the evening) tried to enter the building with his entourage. After they were denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg in a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.Hope, Clover (March 2, 2005). 50 Cent Cancels New York Appearance amid Shooting Inquiry . AllHipHop. Retrieved July 20, 2007. When the situation escalated, the rappers held a joint press conference announcing their reconciliation, and fans were uncertain if the rappers had staged a publicity stunt to boost sales of their recently released albums. After the situation cooled, G-Unit criticized The Game's street credibility and announced that they would not appear on his albums. During a Summer Jam performance The Game announced a boycott of G-Unit, which he called "G-Unot".
After the Summer Jam performance The Game recorded "300 Bars and Runnin'", an extended "diss" of G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella Records, for the mixtape You Know What It Is Vol. 3. Jackson responded with his "Piggy Bank" music video, with The Game as Mr. Potato Head and parodies of other rivals. They have continued attacking each other, with The Game releasing two more mixtapes: Ghost Unit and a mixtape-DVD, Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin. Jackson superimposed The Game's head on the body of a male stripper for the cover of the Hate It or Love It (G-Unit Radio Part 21) mixtape in response to The Game's pictures of G-Unit dressed as the Village People. The Game, under contract to Aftermath Entertainment, signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit (although it is claimed that Jackson pressured Dr. Dre to fire him). G-Unit member Spider Loc has insulted The Game in songs, and the latter released "240 Bars (Spider Joke)" and "100 Bars (The Funeral)" attacking G-Unit and Loc. Jackson's response was "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", mocking The Game. Lloyd Banks replied to the Game on a Rap City freestyle-booth segment, followed by a Game "diss" song ("SoundScan") ridiculing the 13-position drop of Banks' album Rotten Apple on the Billboard 200 chart and its disappointing second-week sales. Banks replied on his mixtape Mo' Money In The Bank Pt. 5: Gang Green Season Continues with "Showtime (The Game's Over)", said that Jackson wrote half of The Documentary and ridiculed The Game's suicidal thoughts.
In October 2006, The Game made a peace overture (which was not immediately answered) to Jackson, but two days later he said on Power 106 that the peace offer was valid for only one day. In several songs on Doctor's Advocate, he implied that the feud was over. He said in July 2009 that the feud had ended with help from Michael Jackson and Diddy, and apologized for his actions. According to Tony Yayo, neither Jackson nor G-Unit accepted his apology and The Game has resumed his calls for a "G-Unot" boycott at concerts. Jackson released "So Disrespectful" on Before I Self Destruct, targeting Jay-Z, The Game and Young Buck. The Game responded with "Shake", poking fun at the music video for Jackson's "Candy Shop".
On August 1, 2016, 50 Cent ended his twelve-year feud with The Game when the two were in the Ace of Diamonds Strip Club and The Game said "What happened, that shit was 12 years ago."
Rick Ross
Although Rick Ross began a feud with Jackson over an alleged incident at the 2008 BET Hip Hop Awards, Jackson told news sources he did not remember seeing Ross there. Later that month Ross' "Mafia Music" was leaked on the Internet, with lyrics apparently disparaging Jackson. Several days later, Jackson released "Officer Ricky (Go Head, Try Me)" in response to "Mafia Music". The following day, Ross appeared on Shade 45 (Eminem's Sirius channel) and told Jackson to come up with something better in 24 hours.
Before leaving for Venezuela, Jackson uploaded a video ("Warning Shot") and the first of a series of "Officer Ricky" cartoons. In early February he uploaded a YouTube video in which he interviewed "Tia", the mother of one of Ross' children; according to her, Ross is in reality a correctional officer. On February 5, 2009, The Game phoned Seattle radio station KUBE. Asked about the dispute between Jackson and Ross, he sided with Jackson and offered to mediate: "Rick Ross, holla at your boy, man" and "50 eating you, boy."
On his album Deeper Than Rap, Ross refers to Jackson in "In Cold Blood" and Jackson's mock funeral is part of the song's video. When the song was released, Ross said that he ended Jackson's career. "Rick Ross is Albert From CB4. You ever seen the movie? He's Albert," Jackson replied in an interview. "It never gets worse than this. You get a guy that was a correctional officer come out and base his entire career on writing material from a drug dealer's perspective such as "Freeway" Ricky Ross." Their feud rekindled at the 2012 BET Hip Hop Awards, where Jackson and G-Unit members Kidd Kidd, Mike Knox, Tony Yayo were seen on video attacking Gunplay (a member of Ross' Maybach Music Group). Gunplay's Maybach Music diamond necklace was stolen during the brawl, and several days later Jackson appeared at a Washington, D.C. bowling alley wearing Gunplay's chain. On January 30, 2013, Jackson tweeted that Ross' attempted drive-by shooting on his birthday three days earlier was "staged".
On August 9, 2020, 50 Cent and Rick Ross ended their feud.
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2009)
Animal Ambition (2014)
Collaborative albums
Beg for Mercy (with G-Unit) (2003)
T·O·S (Terminate on Sight)'' (with G-Unit) (2008)
Filmography
Film
Television
Appearances
Video games
References
External links
1975 births
20th-century American rappers
21st-century American businesspeople
21st-century American male actors
21st-century American rappers
21st-century African-American male singers
African-American fashion designers
African-American film producers
African-American investors
African-American male actors
African-American male rappers
African-American memoirists
African-American record producers
African-American male songwriters
Aftermath Entertainment artists
American book publishers (people)
American boxing promoters
American businesspeople convicted of crimes
American chairpersons of corporations
American chief executives of food industry companies
American corporate directors
American cosmetics businesspeople
American drink industry businesspeople
American fashion businesspeople
American film producers
American hip hop record producers
American male film actors
American male television actors
American male video game actors
American marketing businesspeople
American memoirists
American mining businesspeople
American music industry executives
American music publishers (people)
American nonprofit businesspeople
American people convicted of drug offenses
American reality television producers
American retail chief executives
American shooting survivors
American television company founders
American television executives
Andrew Jackson High School (Queens) alumni
Brit Award winners
Businesspeople from Queens, New York
Businesspeople in metals
Caroline Records artists
East Coast hip hop musicians
Echo (music award) winners
Gangsta rappers
Grammy Award winners for rap music
G-Unit Records artists
JMJ Records artists
Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners
Living people
Male actors from New York City
People from Jamaica, Queens
Philanthropists from New York (state)
Rappers from New York City
Record producers from New York (state)
Shady Records artists
Shoe designers
Songwriters from New York (state)
Sony Music Publishing artists
Stabbing attacks in the United States
Stabbing survivors
Television producers from New York City
World Music Awards winners
Writers from Queens, New York | true | [
"On 31 August 2019, nine people were stabbed by an Afghan asylum-seeker One of the victims died and two remain hospitalized. The attack happened outside a subway station in Lyon, France. The police are not investigating the attack as terrorism, but told police he was Muslim and heard voices that were insulting god. Several witnesses also recalled the attacker shouting religious words.\n\nAn intervening bus driver prevented the attacker from entering the metro which stopped further carnage.\n\nVictims \nA 19-year-old man was stabbed and killed and eight were wounded by the attacker.\n\nReferences \n\n2019 crimes in France\n2019 stabbings\nAugust 2019 crimes in Europe\nAugust 2019 events in France\n2019 stabbings\nStabbing attacks in 2019\nStabbing attacks in France\nViolence in France",
"Master Sergeant Chester Melvin Ovnand (also known with surname Ovnard) (September 8, 1914 – July 8, 1959) was the first American casualty of the Vietnam War killed at the hands of the Viet Cong. His name is the second listed on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.\n\nLife and career\nChester M. Ovnand (also called \"Chet\") was from Copperas Cove, Texas and was born to Engebret Ovnand and Maybelle Welch. Army records conflict as to what his actual name was—Charles Melvin Ovnand or Chester Melvin Ovnard—though that the latter appears on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is possibly an indication of general consensus among the Memorial's planners.\n\nOn July 8, 1959, he and Major Dale R. Buis (visiting from MAAG 5) were killed at Biên Hòa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. He was part of the Military Assistance Advisory Group 7 sent to train the South Vietnamese army. \n\nThe Viet Cong attacked the mess hall where he and five officers were watching the movie The Tattered Dress. M/Sgt Ovnand switched on the lights to change to the next reel, when VC guerrillas poked their weapons through the windows and sprayed the room with automatic weapons fire. M/Sgt Ovnand was hit with several 9mm rounds. He immediately switched the lights off and headed to the top of the stairs, where he was able to turn on the exterior flood lights. He died from his wounds on the stairs. Major Buis, at that time, was crawling towards the kitchen doors. When the exterior flood lights came on, he must have seen an attacker coming through the kitchen doors. He got up and rushed towards the attacker, but was only able to cover 15 feet before being fatally hit from behind. His actions startled the attacker who was about to throw his satchel charge through the door. The attacker's satchel charge had already been activated and his moment of hesitation caused him to blow himself up. Two South Vietnamese guards that were on duty that night were also killed by the Viet Cong. iThe wounded were Captain Howard Boston (MAAG 7) and the Vietnamese cook's eight-year-old son.\n\nSee also\nRichard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr.\nHarry Griffith Cramer Jr.\nDale R. Buis\n\nFurther reading\n \"Death at Intermission Time\", Time, July 20, 1959.\n\"First on the Wall\", M/Sgt Ray Bows, U.S. Army Retired, 2012\n\n1914 births\n1959 deaths\nPeople from Copperas Cove, Texas\nMilitary personnel from Texas\n1959 in Vietnam\nAmerican military personnel killed in the Vietnam War\nUnited States Army non-commissioned officers\nUnited States Army personnel of the Vietnam War"
] |
[
"J. R. R. Tolkien",
"Youth"
] | C_520af9dec9b8423d858cb8b183dc4b45_1 | When was he born? | 1 | When was J. R. R. Tolkien born? | J. R. R. Tolkien | While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a "council" in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed his course in 1913 to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours in his final examinations. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925-45, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university, to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, positions he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
Biography
Ancestry
Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.
According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk". Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word , meaning "foolhardy", and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
Childhood
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.
When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.
Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.
Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald. In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.
Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."
Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists." After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.
Youth
While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.
In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.
Courtship and marriage
At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."
His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams". Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.
On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.
On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry". Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."
Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.
Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916. In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.
First World War
In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy", and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed." Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp. On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham. He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."
France
On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements. He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens. He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire. According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty." Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
Battle of the Somme
Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his brother officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour." On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.
According to John Garth, Kitchener's army at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".
Home front
A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service. During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now". Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,
On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.
Academic and writing career
On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there. While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.
In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.
Beowulf
In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.
Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry". Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".
Second World War
In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.
In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college). Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.
Family
The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.
Retirement
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement. In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.
In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.
Final years
Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.
Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £ in ).
Views
Religion
Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England. He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that". He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament. In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Race
Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism. Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East. Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was opposed to peacetime Nazi racial theory, while in the Second World War he was equally opposed to anti-German propaganda. Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.
Nature
During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.
Writing
Influences
Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed. The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire, while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.
Publications
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"
In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.
"On Fairy-Stories"
This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.
Children's books and other short works
In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.
The Hobbit
Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.
The Lord of the Rings
The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.
Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.
The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.
The Silmarillion
Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.
Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.
Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.
Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien
Manuscript locations
Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.
Languages and philology
Linguistic career
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak. He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."
Language construction
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.
Artwork
Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work. Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.
Legacy
Influence
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy, as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music; and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.
Adaptations
In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama". The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.
Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.
From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.
From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer. The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012; the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013; and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014. In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Memorials
Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),
street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,
mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,
companies such as Palantir Technologies,
and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni, 37 new species of Elachista moths, and many fossils.
Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour. In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired. A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences. The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.
Several blue plaques in England that commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.
Canonization process
On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened. A prayer was written for his cause.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
External links
The Tolkien Estate Website
Journal of Inklings Studies peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien and his literary circle, based at Oxford
HarperCollins Tolkien Website
Biography at the Tolkien Society
Archival material at Leeds University Library
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Additional Resources for J. R. R. Tolkien compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
1892 births
1973 deaths
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English novelists
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"Since the first human spaceflight by the Soviet Union, citizens of 42 countries have flown in space. For each nationality, the launch date of the first mission is listed. The list is based on the nationality of the person at the time of the launch. Only 3 of the 42 \"first flyers\" have been women (Helen Sharman for the United Kingdom in 1991, Anousheh Ansari for Iran in 2006, and Yi So-yeon for South Korea in 2008). Only three nations (Soviet Union/Russia, U.S., China) have launched their own crewed spacecraft, with the Soviets/Russians and the American programs providing rides to other nations' astronauts. Twenty-seven \"first flights\" occurred on Soviet or Russian flights while the United States carried fourteen.\n\nTimeline\nNote: All dates given are UTC. Countries indicated in bold have achieved independent human spaceflight capability.\n\nNotes\n\nOther claims\nThe above list uses the nationality at the time of launch. Lists with differing criteria might include the following people:\n Pavel Popovich, first launched 12 August 1962, was the first Ukrainian-born man in space. At the time, Ukraine was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Michael Collins, first launched 18 July 1966 was born in Italy to American parents and was an American citizen when he went into space.\n William Anders, American citizen, first launched 21 December 1968, was the first Hong Kong-born man in space.\n Vladimir Shatalov, first launched 14 January 1969, was the first Kazakh-born man in space. At the time, Kazakhstan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Bill Pogue, first launched 16 November 1973, as an inductee to the 5 Civilized Tribes Hall of Fame can lay claim to being the first Native American in space. See John Herrington below regarding technicality of tribal registration.\n Pyotr Klimuk, first launched 18 December 1973, was the first Belorussian-born man in space. At the time, Belarus was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Vladimir Dzhanibekov, first launched 16 March 1978, was the first Uzbek-born man in space. At the time, Uzbekistan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Paul D. Scully-Power, first launched 5 October 1984, was born in Australia, but was an American citizen when he went into space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.\n Taylor Gun-Jin Wang, first launched 29 April 1985, was born in China to Chinese parents, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Lodewijk van den Berg, launched 29 April 1985, was born in the Netherlands, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Patrick Baudry, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in French Cameroun (now part of Cameroon), but was a French citizen when he went into space.\n Shannon Lucid, first launched 17 June 1985, was born in China to American parents of European descent, and was an American citizen when she went into space.\n Franklin Chang-Diaz, first launched 12 January 1986, was born in Costa Rica, but was an American citizen when he went into space\n Musa Manarov, first launched 21 December 1987, was the first Azerbaijan-born man in space. At the time, Azerbaijan was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Anatoly Solovyev, first launched 7 June 1988, was the first Latvian-born man in space. At the time, Latvia was a part of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.\n Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Volkov became Russian rather than Soviet citizens while still in orbit aboard Mir, making them the first purely Russian citizens in space.\n James H. Newman, American citizen, first launched 12 September 1993, was born in the portion of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands that is now the Federated States of Micronesia.\n Talgat Musabayev, first launched 1 July 1994, was born in the Kazakh SSR and is known in Kazakhstan as the \"first cosmonaut of independent Kazakhstan\", but was a Russian citizen when he went into space.\n Frederick W. Leslie, American citizen, launched 20 October 1995, was born in Panama Canal Zone (now Panama).\n Andy Thomas, first launched 19 May 1996, was born in Australia but like Paul D. Scully-Power was an American citizen when he went to space; Australian law at the time forbade dual-citizenship.\n Carlos I. Noriega, first launched 15 May 1997, was born in Peru, but was an American citizen when he went into space.\n Bjarni Tryggvason, launched 7 August 1997, was born in Iceland, but was a Canadian citizen when he went into space.\n Salizhan Sharipov, first launched 22 January 1998, was born in Kyrgyzstan (then the Kirghiz SSR), but was a Russian citizen when he went into space. Sharipov is of Uzbek ancestry.\n Philippe Perrin, first launched 5 June 2002, was born in Morocco, but was a French citizen when he went into space.\n John Herrington, an American citizen first launched 24 November 2002, is the first tribal registered Native American in space (Chickasaw). See also Bill Pogue above.\n Fyodor Yurchikhin, first launched 7 October 2002, was born in Georgia (then the Georgian SSR). He was a Russian citizen at the time he went into space and is of Pontian Greek descent.\n Joseph M. Acaba, first launched 15 March 2009, was born in the U.S. state of California to American parents of Puerto Rican descent.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nCurrent Space Demographics, compiled by William Harwood, CBS News Space Consultant, and Rob Navias, NASA.\n\nLists of firsts in space\nSpaceflight timelines",
"This is a list of notable books by young authors and of books written by notable writers in their early years. These books were written, or substantially completed, before the author's twentieth birthday. \n\nAlexandra Adornetto (born 18 April 1994) wrote her debut novel, The Shadow Thief, when she was 13. It was published in 2007. Other books written by her as a teenager are: The Lampo Circus (2008), Von Gobstopper's Arcade (2009), Halo (2010) and Hades (2011).\nMargery Allingham (1904–1966) had her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, about smugglers in 17th century Essex, published in 1923, when she was 19.\nJorge Amado (1912–2001) had his debut novel, The Country of Carnival, published in 1931, when he was 18.\nPrateek Arora wrote his debut novel Village 1104 at the age of 16. It was published in 2010.\nDaisy Ashford (1881–1972) wrote The Young Visiters while aged nine. This novella was first published in 1919, preserving her juvenile punctuation and spelling. An earlier work, The Life of Father McSwiney, was dictated to her father when she was four. It was published almost a century later in 1983.\nAmelia Atwater-Rhodes (born 1984) had her first novel, In the Forests of the Night, published in 1999. Subsequent novels include Demon in My View (2000), Shattered Mirror (2001), Midnight Predator (2002), Hawksong (2003) and Snakecharm (2004).\nJane Austen (1775–1817) wrote Lady Susan, a short epistolary novel, between 1793 and 1795 when she was aged 18-20.\nRuskin Bond (born 1934) wrote his semi-autobiographical novel The Room on the Roof when he was 17. It was published in 1955.\nMarjorie Bowen (1885–1952) wrote the historical novel The Viper of Milan when she was 16. Published in 1906 after several rejections, it became a bestseller.\nOliver Madox Brown (1855–1874) finished his novel Gabriel Denver in early 1872, when he was 17. It was published the following year.\nPamela Brown (1924–1989) finished her children's novel about an amateur theatre company, The Swish of the Curtain (1941), when she was 16 and later wrote other books about the stage.\nCeleste and Carmel Buckingham wrote The Lost Princess when they were 11 and 9.\nFlavia Bujor (born 8 August 1988) wrote The Prophecy of the Stones (2002) when she was 13.\nLord Byron (1788–1824) published two volumes of poetry in his teens, Fugitive Pieces and Hours of Idleness.\nTaylor Caldwell's The Romance of Atlantis was written when she was 12.\n (1956–1976), Le Don de Vorace, was published in 1974.\nHilda Conkling (1910–1986) had her poems published in Poems by a Little Girl (1920), Shoes of the Wind (1922) and Silverhorn (1924).\nAbraham Cowley (1618–1667), Tragicall History of Piramus and Thisbe (1628), Poetical Blossoms (published 1633).\nMaureen Daly (1921–2006) completed Seventeenth Summer before she was 20. It was published in 1942.\nJuliette Davies (born 2000) wrote the first book in the JJ Halo series when she was eight years old. The series was published the following year.\nSamuel R. Delany (born 1 April 1942) published his The Jewels of Aptor in 1962.\nPatricia Finney's A Shadow of Gulls was published in 1977 when she was 18. Its sequel, The Crow Goddess, was published in 1978.\nBarbara Newhall Follett (1914–1939) wrote her first novel The House Without Windows at the age of eight. The manuscript was destroyed in a house fire and she later retyped her manuscript at the age of 12. The novel was published by Knopf publishing house in January 1927.\nFord Madox Ford (né Hueffer) (1873–1939) published in 1892 two children's stories, The Brown Owl and The Feather, and a novel, The Shifting of the Fire.\nAnne Frank (1929–1945) wrote her diary for two-and-a-half years starting on her 13th birthday. It was published posthumously as Het Achterhuis in 1947 and then in English translation in 1952 as Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl. An unabridged translation followed in 1996.\nMiles Franklin wrote My Brilliant Career (1901) when she was a teenager.\nAlec Greven's How to Talk to Girls was published in 2008 when he was nine years old. Subsequently he has published How to Talk to Moms, How to Talk to Dads and How to Talk to Santa.\nFaïza Guène (born 1985) had Kiffe kiffe demain published in 2004, when she was 19. It has since been translated into 22 languages, including English (as Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow).\nSonya Hartnett (born 1968) was thirteen years old when she wrote her first novel, Trouble All the Way, which was published in Australia in 1984.\nAlex and Brett Harris wrote the best-selling book Do Hard Things (2008), a non-fiction book challenging teenagers to \"rebel against low expectations\", at age 19. Two years later came a follow-up book called Start Here (2010).\nGeorgette Heyer (1902–1974) wrote The Black Moth when she was 17 and received a publishing contract when she was 18. It was published just after she turned 19.\nSusan Hill (born 1942), The Enclosure, published in 1961.\nS. E. Hinton (born 1948), The Outsiders, first published in 1967.\nPalle Huld (1912–2010) wrote A Boy Scout Around the World (Jorden Rundt i 44 dage) when he was 15, following a sponsored journey around the world.\nGeorge Vernon Hudson (1867–1946) completed An Elementary Manual of New Zealand Entomology at the end of 1886, when he was 19, but not published until 1892.\nKatharine Hull (1921–1977) and Pamela Whitlock (1920–1982) wrote the children's outdoor adventure novel The Far-Distant Oxus in 1937. It was followed in 1938 by Escape to Persia and in 1939 by Oxus in Summer.\nLeigh Hunt (1784–1859) published Juvenilia; or, a Collection of Poems Written between the ages of Twelve and Sixteen by J. H. L. Hunt, Late of the Grammar School of Christ's Hospital in March 1801.\nKody Keplinger (born 1991) wrote her debut novel The DUFF when she was 17.\nGordon Korman (born 1963), This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall (1978), three sequels, and I Want to Go Home (1981).\nMatthew Gregory Lewis (1775–1818) wrote the Gothic novel The Monk, now regarded as a classic of the genre, before he was twenty. It was published in 1796.\nNina Lugovskaya (1918–1993), a painter, theater director and Gulag survivor, kept a diary in 1932–37, which shows strong social sensitivities. It was found in the Russian State Archives and published 2003. It appeared in English in the same year.\nJoyce Maynard (born 1953) completed Looking Back while she was 19. It was first published in 1973.\nMargaret Mitchell (1900–1949) wrote her novella Lost Laysen at the age of fifteen and gave the two notebooks containing the manuscript to her boyfriend, Henry Love Angel. The novel was published posthumously in 1996.\nBen Okri, the Nigerian poet and novelist, (born 1959) wrote his first book Flowers and Shadows while he was 19.\nAlice Oseman(born 1994) wrote the novel Solitaire when she was 17 and it was published in 2014.\nHelen Oyeyemi (born 1984) completed The Icarus Girl while still 18. First published in 2005.\nChristopher Paolini (born 1983) had Eragon, the first novel of the Inheritance Cycle, first published 2002.\nEmily Pepys (1833–1877), daughter of a bishop, wrote a vivid private journal over six months of 1844–45, aged ten. It was discovered much later and published in 1984.\nAnya Reiss (born 1991) wrote her play Spur of the Moment when she was 17. It was both performed and published in 2010, when she was 18.\nArthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) wrote almost all his prose and poetry while still a teenager, for example Le Soleil était encore chaud (1866), Le Bateau ivre (1871) and Une Saison en Enfer (1873).\nJohn Thomas Romney Robinson (1792–1882) saw his juvenile poems published in 1806, when he was 13.\nFrançoise Sagan (1935–2004) had Bonjour tristesse published in 1954, when she was 18.\nMary Shelley (1797–1851) completed Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus during May 1817, when she was 19. It was first published in the following year.\nMattie Stepanek (1990–2004), an American poet, published seven best-selling books of poetry.\nJohn Steptoe (1950–1989), author and illustrator, began his picture book Stevie at 16. It was published in 1969 in Life.\nAnna Stothard (born 1983) saw her Isabel and Rocco published when she was 19.\nDorothy Straight (born 1958) in 1962 wrote How the World Began, which was published by Pantheon Books in 1964. She holds the Guinness world record for the youngest female published author.\nJalaluddin Al-Suyuti (c. 1445–1505) wrote his first book, Sharh Al-Isti'aadha wal-Basmalah, at the age of 17.\nF. J. Thwaites (1908–1979) wrote his bestselling novel The Broken Melody when he was 19.\nJohn Kennedy Toole (1937–1969) wrote The Neon Bible in 1954 when he was 16. It was not published until 1989.\nAlec Waugh (1898–1981) wrote his novel about school life, The Loom of Youth, after leaving school. It was published in 1917.\nCatherine Webb (born 1986) had five young adult books published before she was 20: Mirror Dreams (2002), Mirror Wakes (2003), Waywalkers (2003), Timekeepers (2004) and The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle (February 2006).\nNancy Yi Fan (born 1993) published her debut Swordbird when she was 12. Other books she published as a teenager include Sword Quest (2008) and Sword Mountain (2012).\nKat Zhang (born 1991) was 20 when she sold, in a three-book deal, her entire Hybrid Chronicles trilogy. The first book, What's Left of Me, was published 2012.\n\nSee also \nLists of books\n\nReferences \n\nBooks Written By Children and Teenagers\nbooks\nChildren And Teenagers, Written By\nChi"
] |
[
"J. R. R. Tolkien",
"Youth",
"When was he born?",
"I don't know."
] | C_520af9dec9b8423d858cb8b183dc4b45_1 | Where did he grow up? | 2 | Where did J. R. R. Tolkien grow up? | J. R. R. Tolkien | While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a "council" in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed his course in 1913 to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours in his final examinations. CANNOTANSWER | Switzerland, | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925-45, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university, to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, positions he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
Biography
Ancestry
Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.
According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk". Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word , meaning "foolhardy", and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
Childhood
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.
When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.
Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.
Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald. In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.
Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."
Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists." After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.
Youth
While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.
In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.
Courtship and marriage
At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."
His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams". Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.
On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.
On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry". Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."
Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.
Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916. In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.
First World War
In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy", and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed." Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp. On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham. He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."
France
On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements. He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens. He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire. According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty." Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
Battle of the Somme
Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his brother officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour." On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.
According to John Garth, Kitchener's army at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".
Home front
A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service. During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now". Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,
On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.
Academic and writing career
On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there. While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.
In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.
Beowulf
In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.
Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry". Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".
Second World War
In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.
In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college). Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.
Family
The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.
Retirement
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement. In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.
In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.
Final years
Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.
Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £ in ).
Views
Religion
Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England. He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that". He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament. In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Race
Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism. Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East. Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was opposed to peacetime Nazi racial theory, while in the Second World War he was equally opposed to anti-German propaganda. Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.
Nature
During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.
Writing
Influences
Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed. The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire, while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.
Publications
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"
In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.
"On Fairy-Stories"
This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.
Children's books and other short works
In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.
The Hobbit
Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.
The Lord of the Rings
The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.
Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.
The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.
The Silmarillion
Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.
Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.
Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.
Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien
Manuscript locations
Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.
Languages and philology
Linguistic career
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak. He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."
Language construction
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.
Artwork
Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work. Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.
Legacy
Influence
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy, as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music; and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.
Adaptations
In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama". The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.
Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.
From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.
From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer. The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012; the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013; and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014. In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Memorials
Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),
street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,
mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,
companies such as Palantir Technologies,
and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni, 37 new species of Elachista moths, and many fossils.
Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour. In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired. A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences. The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.
Several blue plaques in England that commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.
Canonization process
On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened. A prayer was written for his cause.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
External links
The Tolkien Estate Website
Journal of Inklings Studies peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien and his literary circle, based at Oxford
HarperCollins Tolkien Website
Biography at the Tolkien Society
Archival material at Leeds University Library
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Additional Resources for J. R. R. Tolkien compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
1892 births
1973 deaths
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English novelists
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Academics of the University of Leeds
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Constructed language creators
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J.R.R.
Translators from Old English
Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands
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Roman Catholic writers | true | [
"Grow Up may refer to:\nAdvance in age\nProgress toward psychological maturity\nGrow Up (book), a 2007 book by Keith Allen\nGrow Up (video game), 2016 video game\n\nMusic\nGrow Up (Desperate Journalist album), 2017\nGrow Up (The Queers album), 1990\nGrow Up (Svoy album), 2011\nGrow Up, a 2015 EP by HALO\n\"Grow Up\" (Olly Murs song)\n\"Grow Up\" (Paramore song)\n\"Grow Up\" (Simple Plan song)\n\"Grow Up\", a song by Rockwell\n\"Grow Up\", a song from the Bratz album Rock Angelz\n\"Grow Up\", a song by Cher Lloyd from Sticks and Stones\n\nSee also\nGrowing Up (disambiguation)\nGrow Up, Tony Phillips, a 2013 film by Emily Hagins",
"\"When I Grow Up\" is the second single from Swedish recording artist Fever Ray's self-titled debut album, Fever Ray (2009).\n\nCritical reception\nPitchfork Media placed \"When I Grow Up\" at number 36 on the website's list of The Top 100 Tracks of 2009.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video for \"When I Grow Up\" was directed by Martin de Thurah. He said of the video's visual statement:\n\n\"That initial idea was something about something coming out of water—something which was about to take form – a state turning into something new. And a double headed creature not deciding which to turn. But the idea had to take a simpler form, to let the song grow by itself. I remembered a photo I took in Croatia two years ago, a swimming pool with its shining blue color in a grey foggy autumn landscape.\"\n\nThe video premiered on Fever Ray's YouTube channel on 19 February 2009. It has received over 12 million views as of March 2016.\n\n\"When I Grow Up\" was placed at number three on Spins list of The 20 Best Videos of 2009.\n\nTrack listings\niTunes single\n\"When I Grow Up\" – 4:31\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Håkan Lidbo's Encephalitis Remix) – 5:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\n\"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:16\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Vocal Version by Pär Grindvik) – 6:02\n\"When I Grow Up\" (We Grow Apart Inspiration - Take 2 - By Pär Grindvik) – 7:59\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's High Up Mix) – 6:17\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Scuba's Straight Down Mix) – 5:54\n\"When I Grow Up\" (Video) – 4:04\n\nSwedish 12\" single \nA1. \"When I Grow Up\" (Van Rivers Dark Sails on the Horizon Mix) – 9:10\nA2. \"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik) – 4:28\nB1. \"Memories from When I Grew Up (Remembered by The Subliminal Kid)\" – 16:41\n\nUK promo CD single \n\"When I Grow Up\" (Edit) – 3:42\n\"When I Grow Up\" (D. Lissvik Radio Edit) – 3:19\n\nNominations\n\nAppearances in other media\nThe song was used as part of the soundtrack for the video game Pro Evolution Soccer 2011.\n\nReferences\n\n2009 singles\n2009 songs\nFever Ray songs\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer"
] |
[
"J. R. R. Tolkien",
"Youth",
"When was he born?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he grow up?",
"Switzerland,"
] | C_520af9dec9b8423d858cb8b183dc4b45_1 | Where did he attend school? | 3 | Where did J. R. R. Tolkien attend school? | J. R. R. Tolkien | While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a "council" in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed his course in 1913 to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours in his final examinations. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925-45, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university, to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, positions he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
Biography
Ancestry
Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.
According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk". Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word , meaning "foolhardy", and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
Childhood
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.
When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.
Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.
Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald. In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.
Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."
Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists." After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.
Youth
While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.
In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.
Courtship and marriage
At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."
His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams". Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.
On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.
On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry". Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."
Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.
Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916. In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.
First World War
In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy", and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed." Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp. On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham. He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."
France
On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements. He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens. He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire. According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty." Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
Battle of the Somme
Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his brother officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour." On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.
According to John Garth, Kitchener's army at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".
Home front
A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service. During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now". Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,
On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.
Academic and writing career
On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there. While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.
In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.
Beowulf
In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.
Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry". Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".
Second World War
In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.
In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college). Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.
Family
The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.
Retirement
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement. In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.
In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.
Final years
Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.
Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £ in ).
Views
Religion
Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England. He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that". He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament. In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Race
Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism. Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East. Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was opposed to peacetime Nazi racial theory, while in the Second World War he was equally opposed to anti-German propaganda. Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.
Nature
During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.
Writing
Influences
Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed. The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire, while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.
Publications
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"
In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.
"On Fairy-Stories"
This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.
Children's books and other short works
In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.
The Hobbit
Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.
The Lord of the Rings
The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.
Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.
The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.
The Silmarillion
Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.
Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.
Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.
Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien
Manuscript locations
Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.
Languages and philology
Linguistic career
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak. He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."
Language construction
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.
Artwork
Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work. Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.
Legacy
Influence
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy, as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music; and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.
Adaptations
In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama". The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.
Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.
From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.
From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer. The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012; the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013; and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014. In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Memorials
Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),
street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,
mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,
companies such as Palantir Technologies,
and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni, 37 new species of Elachista moths, and many fossils.
Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour. In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired. A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences. The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.
Several blue plaques in England that commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.
Canonization process
On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened. A prayer was written for his cause.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
External links
The Tolkien Estate Website
Journal of Inklings Studies peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien and his literary circle, based at Oxford
HarperCollins Tolkien Website
Biography at the Tolkien Society
Archival material at Leeds University Library
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Additional Resources for J. R. R. Tolkien compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
1892 births
1973 deaths
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English poets
20th-century philologists
20th-century translators
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Anglo-Saxon studies scholars
Arthurian scholars
British Army personnel of World War I
British monarchists
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Constructed language creators
Creators of writing systems
English environmentalists
English children's writers
English Esperantists
English fantasy writers
British academics of English literature
English male novelists
English male short story writers
English people of German descent
English philologists
English Roman Catholics
English short story writers
Fellows of Merton College, Oxford
Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Inklings
Lancashire Fusiliers officers
Linguists from England
Merton Professors of English Language and Literature
Mythopoeic writers
People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
People educated at St Philip's School
People from Bloemfontein
People from Headington
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professors of Anglo-Saxon
Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees
South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
J.R.R.
Translators from Old English
Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands
Writers on Germanic paganism
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Writers from Oxford
Fantasy artists
Lost Generation writers
Roman Catholic writers | false | [
"Ben Ivery Wilson (born March 9, 1939) is a former professional American football fullback in the National Football League.\n\nHigh school\nWilson attended Aldine Carver High School where he played football and was also the state champ in the shot put. While at Carver, he was a Jones scholar who was offered an academic scholarship to attend the University of Cincinnati, but he wanted to play football. Although he was an exceptional football player, he did not receive a scholarship offer from any white college in Texas because of segregation.\n\nCollege career\nThe superintendent of Wilson's high school had contacts at USC and Wilson received a scholarship to attend USC. While at USC, Wilson became the starting fullback and team captain of USC's 1962 national championship team.\n\nProfessional career\nWilson played running back for five seasons in the NFL. He was traded from the Los Angeles Rams to the Green Bay Packers prior to the 1967 season. Wilson started at fullback in Super Bowl II for Green Bay and led both teams in rushing with 62 yards in 17 carries. Late in the game he lost a contact lens on the sidelines after being tackled, and missed the rest of the game.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n NFL.com player page\n\n1939 births\nLiving people\nAmerican football running backs\nGreen Bay Packers players\nLos Angeles Rams players\nUSC Trojans football players\nPlayers of American football from Houston",
"Indiana has some of the most segregated schools in the United States. Despite laws demanding school integration since 1949, a 2017 study by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and Indiana University found that Indiana still has significant segregation in its classrooms.\n\nThe average black student in Indiana is likely to attend a school where 68% of the students are non-white. The average white student is likely to attend a school where 81% of the students are white.\n\nHistory\nIndiana became a state in 1816. In 1843 the Legislature stated that the public schools were only for white children between the ages of 5 and 21, and as a result, Quakers and communities of free Black people founded schools like Union Literary Institute for Black students to attend. In 1869, the legislature authorized separate but equal public schools for black children. In 1877, the legislature revised the law to allow black attendance at a white school if a black school was not nearby. Home rule for municipalities meant that application was uneven. Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legitimized separate but equal as policy. During the 1920's, Indiana became a major base for the Ku Klux Klan further pushing Black residents away from school districts that had a majority white population. Prominent examples of segregated high schools in Indiana in the early 20th Century were Crispus Attucks High School in Indianapolis (opened in 1927) and Theodore Roosevelt High School in Gary (accredited in 1930). In 1946, the Gary School Board issued a non-discriminatory policy. Because neighborhoods had different demographic characteristics, the schools there remained effectively segregated. In 1949, the state adopted language that was unambiguously in favor of integration. It was the last of the northern (non-Confederate) states to do so.\n\nAfter Brown v. Board of Education, the state still needed a legal push. Bell v. School City of Gary (1963) was the first. Three years later came Copeland v. South Bend Community School Corporation (1967). Three years after that came Banks v. Muncie Community Schools (1970). National policy came the next year in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971), which relied on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.\n\nIn the 1970s, the federal answer was court-ordered busing. In Indianapolis, busing began in 1981. The bussing requirements in Indiana however were uneven, they did not require white children to be bussed out Black schools making Black children and parents face most of the consequences of the bussing program. Busing in Indianapolis ended in 2016.\n\nDemographics\nHoosiers describe themselves as being more white than much of the rest of the country. In the 2010 Census, 84.4% reported being white, compared with 73.8 for the nation as a whole.\n\nIndiana had never been a big slave state. The 1840 Census reported three slaves and 11,262 “free colored” persons out of a population of 685,866. By 1850, no slaves were reported. That is not to say that the state was welcoming to blacks. The 1851 state constitution said, \"No Negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.” In the early 20th century, mechanization of agriculture in the South stimulated immigration of blacks to large cities like Indianapolis. Migration accelerated in World War II, slowing only in the 1970s. Simultaneously, whites began to move out of the downtown areas to suburbs. \n\nLatinos were a small portion of Indiana's population prior to 1970. In any case the Census did not reliably track Latinos before the 1970 Census. The 2000 Census described 3.5% of Indiana's population as Latino. In the next decade, the state's Latino population grew at twice the national rate. In 2010, the state was 6.0% Latino. They have settled more-or-less evenly distributed across the state.\n\nSchool demographics\nThe demographics of schools in Indiana reflect the composition of the communities in which they are located. The average white student in Indiana is likely to attend a school where 81% of the students are white. The average black student is likely to attend a school where 68% of the students are non-white.\n\nStudies\nSince 1996, the relative segregation of classrooms across the United States has been studied by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard until 2007 and subsequently at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA. In 2017, the Project cooperated to with Indiana University to study the conditions in the state.\n\nA 2012 UCLA study showed that Indiana had the sixth most segregated classrooms in America.\n\nSchool vouchers\nIndiana has one of the largest school voucher programs in the United States. Critics contend that vouchers contribute to school segregation. Analysis of two recent studies on vouchers garner mixed support for contributing to segregation; however, both contend that black recipients who had been in a majority-black public school used school vouchers to attend a majority-black private school.\n\nReferences \n\nEducation in Indiana\nAfrican-American history of Indiana\nSchool segregation in the United States"
] |
[
"J. R. R. Tolkien",
"Youth",
"When was he born?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did he grow up?",
"Switzerland,",
"Where did he attend school?",
"I don't know."
] | C_520af9dec9b8423d858cb8b183dc4b45_1 | What is significant about his childhood? | 4 | What is significant about J. R. R. Tolkien's childhood? | J. R. R. Tolkien | While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a "council" in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed his course in 1913 to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours in his final examinations. CANNOTANSWER | studied Classics | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925-45, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university, to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, positions he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
Biography
Ancestry
Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.
According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk". Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word , meaning "foolhardy", and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
Childhood
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.
When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.
Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.
Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald. In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.
Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."
Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists." After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.
Youth
While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.
In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.
Courtship and marriage
At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."
His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams". Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.
On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.
On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry". Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."
Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.
Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916. In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.
First World War
In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy", and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed." Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp. On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham. He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."
France
On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements. He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens. He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire. According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty." Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
Battle of the Somme
Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his brother officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour." On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.
According to John Garth, Kitchener's army at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".
Home front
A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service. During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now". Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,
On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.
Academic and writing career
On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there. While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.
In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.
Beowulf
In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.
Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry". Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".
Second World War
In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.
In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college). Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.
Family
The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.
Retirement
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement. In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.
In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.
Final years
Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.
Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £ in ).
Views
Religion
Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England. He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that". He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament. In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Race
Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism. Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East. Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was opposed to peacetime Nazi racial theory, while in the Second World War he was equally opposed to anti-German propaganda. Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.
Nature
During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.
Writing
Influences
Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed. The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire, while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.
Publications
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"
In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.
"On Fairy-Stories"
This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.
Children's books and other short works
In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.
The Hobbit
Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.
The Lord of the Rings
The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.
Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.
The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.
The Silmarillion
Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.
Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.
Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.
Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien
Manuscript locations
Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.
Languages and philology
Linguistic career
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak. He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."
Language construction
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.
Artwork
Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work. Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.
Legacy
Influence
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy, as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music; and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.
Adaptations
In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama". The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.
Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.
From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.
From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer. The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012; the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013; and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014. In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Memorials
Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),
street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,
mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,
companies such as Palantir Technologies,
and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni, 37 new species of Elachista moths, and many fossils.
Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour. In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired. A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences. The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.
Several blue plaques in England that commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.
Canonization process
On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened. A prayer was written for his cause.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
External links
The Tolkien Estate Website
Journal of Inklings Studies peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien and his literary circle, based at Oxford
HarperCollins Tolkien Website
Biography at the Tolkien Society
Archival material at Leeds University Library
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Additional Resources for J. R. R. Tolkien compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
1892 births
1973 deaths
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English poets
20th-century philologists
20th-century translators
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Anglo-Saxon studies scholars
Arthurian scholars
British Army personnel of World War I
British monarchists
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Constructed language creators
Creators of writing systems
English environmentalists
English children's writers
English Esperantists
English fantasy writers
British academics of English literature
English male novelists
English male short story writers
English people of German descent
English philologists
English Roman Catholics
English short story writers
Fellows of Merton College, Oxford
Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Inklings
Lancashire Fusiliers officers
Linguists from England
Merton Professors of English Language and Literature
Mythopoeic writers
People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
People educated at St Philip's School
People from Bloemfontein
People from Headington
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professors of Anglo-Saxon
Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees
South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
J.R.R.
Translators from Old English
Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands
Writers on Germanic paganism
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Writers from Oxford
Fantasy artists
Lost Generation writers
Roman Catholic writers | false | [
"They Cage the Animals at Night (1984) is the autobiography of Jennings Michael Burch. It tells the story of his childhood with an epilogue of what happened to the family's members. In the book, he talks about how he is pushed around from foster home to foster home, his horrible experiences, also including his good ones, and how he made it through his childhood years holding on to a single stuffed animal named \"Doggie\".\n\n1984 non-fiction books\nAmerican memoirs",
"La Chatte is a short novel by French writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Released in 1933, the book tells of a love triangle involving Camille Malmert, her husband Alain Amparat and his Chartreux cat Saha. Camille loves Alain, but Alain loves his cat, whom he has had from childhood, more than he could love any woman. The book mainly focuses on Alain and his refusal to leave the memories of childhood; his cat is the embodiment of his childhood. \n\nIn the story, Camille and Alain get married and temporarily move into one of Camille's friend's flats. Alain does not like this, as he is away from his childhood home and his cat. Eventually, Camille becomes so annoyed at Alain's obsession with the cat that she pushes Saha from the balcony of the flat, to what she hopes is her death. The cat survives and Alain, furious, leaves Camille to move back in with his mother and his cat.\n\nAlain is rumored to be based upon Colette's own brother. Saha is based upon a Chartreux cat that Colette once owned called \"La Chatte.\"\n\n1933 French novels\nFrench romance novels\nNovels about cats\nNovels by Colette"
] |
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"I don't know.",
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"Switzerland,",
"Where did he attend school?",
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"studied Classics"
] | C_520af9dec9b8423d858cb8b183dc4b45_1 | where did he study | 5 | Where did J. R. R. Tolkien study? | J. R. R. Tolkien | While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto. In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a "council" in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry. In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Murren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt. In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially studied Classics but changed his course in 1913 to English Language and Literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours in his final examinations. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was an English writer, poet, philologist, and academic, best known as the author of the high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
From 1925-45, Tolkien was the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon and a Fellow of Pembroke College, both at the University of Oxford. He then moved within the same university, to become the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature and Fellow of Merton College, positions he held from 1945 until his retirement in 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, a co-member of the informal literary discussion group The Inklings. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II on 28 March 1972.
After Tolkien's death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his father's extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion. These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, form a connected body of tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a fantasy world called Arda and, within it, Middle-earth. Between 1951 and 1955, Tolkien applied the term legendarium to the larger part of these writings.
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence of the genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy.
Biography
Ancestry
Tolkien's immediate paternal ancestors were middle-class craftsmen who made and sold clocks, watches and pianos in London and Birmingham. The Tolkien family originated in the East Prussian town of Kreuzburg near Königsberg, which had been founded during medieval German eastward expansion, where his earliest-known paternal ancestor Michel Tolkien was born around 1620. Michel's son Christianus Tolkien (1663–1746) was a wealthy miller in Kreuzburg. His son Christian Tolkien (1706–1791) moved from Kreuzburg to nearby Danzig, and his two sons Daniel Gottlieb Tolkien (1747–1813) and Johann (later known as John) Benjamin Tolkien (1752–1819) emigrated to London in the 1770s and became the ancestors of the English family; the younger brother was J. R. R. Tolkien's second great-grandfather. In 1792 John Benjamin Tolkien and William Gravell took over the Erdley Norton manufacture in London, which from then on sold clocks and watches under the name Gravell & Tolkien. Daniel Gottlieb obtained British citizenship in 1794, but John Benjamin apparently never became a British citizen. Other German relatives also joined the two brothers in London. Several people with the surname Tolkien or similar spelling, some of them members of the same family as J. R. R. Tolkien, live in northern Germany, but most of them are descendants of people who evacuated East Prussia in 1945, at the end of World War II.
According to Ryszard Derdziński, the Tolkien name is of Low Prussian origin and probably means "son/descendant of Tolk". Tolkien mistakenly believed his surname derived from the German word , meaning "foolhardy", and jokingly inserted himself as a "cameo" into The Notion Club Papers under the literally translated name Rashbold. However, Derdziński has demonstrated this to be a false etymology. While J. R. R. Tolkien was aware of the Tolkien family's German origin, his knowledge of the family's history was limited because he was "early isolated from the family of his prematurely deceased father".
Childhood
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born on 3 January 1892 in Bloemfontein in the Orange Free State (later annexed by the British Empire; now Free State Province in the Republic of South Africa), to Arthur Reuel Tolkien (1857–1896), an English bank manager, and his wife Mabel, née Suffield (1870–1904). The couple had left England when Arthur was promoted to head the Bloemfontein office of the British bank for which he worked. Tolkien had one sibling, his younger brother, Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien, who was born on 17 February 1894.
As a child, Tolkien was bitten by a large baboon spider in the garden, an event some believe to have been later echoed in his stories, although he admitted no actual memory of the event and no special hatred of spiders as an adult. In an earlier incident from Tolkien's infancy, a young family servant took the baby to his homestead, returning him the next morning.
When he was three, he went to England with his mother and brother on what was intended to be a lengthy family visit. His father, however, died in South Africa of rheumatic fever before he could join them. This left the family without an income, so Tolkien's mother took him to live with her parents in Kings Heath, Birmingham. Soon after, in 1896, they moved to Sarehole (now in Hall Green), then a Worcestershire village, later annexed to Birmingham. He enjoyed exploring Sarehole Mill and Moseley Bog and the Clent, Lickey and Malvern Hills, which would later inspire scenes in his books, along with nearby towns and villages such as Bromsgrove, Alcester, and Alvechurch and places such as his aunt Jane's farm Bag End, the name of which he used in his fiction.
Mabel Tolkien taught her two children at home. Ronald, as he was known in the family, was a keen pupil. She taught him a great deal of botany and awakened in him the enjoyment of the look and feel of plants. Young Tolkien liked to draw landscapes and trees, but his favourite lessons were those concerning languages, and his mother taught him the rudiments of Latin very early.
Tolkien could read by the age of four and could write fluently soon afterwards. His mother allowed him to read many books. He disliked Treasure Island and "The Pied Piper" and thought Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll was "amusing but disturbing". He liked stories about "Red Indians" (Native Americans) and works of fantasy by George MacDonald. In addition, the "Fairy Books" of Andrew Lang were particularly important to him and their influence is apparent in some of his later writings.
Mabel Tolkien was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1900 despite vehement protests by her Baptist family, which stopped all financial assistance to her. In 1904, when J. R. R. Tolkien was 12, his mother died of acute diabetes at Fern Cottage in Rednal, which she was renting. She was then about 34 years of age, about as old as a person with diabetes mellitus type 1 could survive without treatment—insulin would not be discovered until 1921, two decades later. Nine years after her death, Tolkien wrote, "My own dear mother was a martyr indeed, and it is not to everybody that God grants so easy a way to his great gifts as he did to Hilary and myself, giving us a mother who killed herself with labour and trouble to ensure us keeping the faith."
Before her death, Mabel Tolkien had assigned the guardianship of her sons to her close friend, Father Francis Xavier Morgan of the Birmingham Oratory, who was assigned to bring them up as good Catholics. In a 1965 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled the influence of the man whom he always called "Father Francis": "He was an upper-class Welsh-Spaniard Tory, and seemed to some just a pottering old gossip. He was—and he was not. I first learned charity and forgiveness from him; and in the light of it pierced even the 'liberal' darkness out of which I came, knowing more about 'Bloody Mary' than the Mother of Jesus—who was never mentioned except as an object of wicked worship by the Romanists." After his mother's death, Tolkien grew up in the Edgbaston area of Birmingham and attended King Edward's School, Birmingham, and later St Philip's School. In 1903, he won a Foundation Scholarship and returned to King Edward's.
Youth
While in his early teens, Tolkien had his first encounter with a constructed language, Animalic, an invention of his cousins, Mary and Marjorie Incledon. At that time, he was studying Latin and Anglo-Saxon. Their interest in Animalic soon died away, but Mary and others, including Tolkien himself, invented a new and more complex language called Nevbosh. The next constructed language he came to work with, Naffarin, would be his own creation. Tolkien learned Esperanto some time before 1909. Around 10 June 1909 he composed "The Book of the Foxrook", a sixteen-page notebook, where the "earliest example of one of his invented alphabets" appears. Short texts in this notebook are written in Esperanto.
In 1911, while they were at King Edward's School, Tolkien and three friends, Rob Gilson, Geoffrey Bache Smith, and Christopher Wiseman, formed a semi-secret society they called the T.C.B.S. The initials stood for Tea Club and Barrovian Society, alluding to their fondness for drinking tea in Barrow's Stores near the school and, secretly, in the school library. After leaving school, the members stayed in touch and, in December 1914, they held a council in London at Wiseman's home. For Tolkien, the result of this meeting was a strong dedication to writing poetry.
In 1911, Tolkien went on a summer holiday in Switzerland, a trip that he recollects vividly in a 1968 letter, noting that Bilbo's journey across the Misty Mountains ("including the glissade down the slithering stones into the pine woods") is directly based on his adventures as their party of 12 hiked from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen and on to camp in the moraines beyond Mürren. Fifty-seven years later, Tolkien remembered his regret at leaving the view of the eternal snows of Jungfrau and Silberhorn, "the Silvertine (Celebdil) of my dreams". They went across the Kleine Scheidegg to Grindelwald and on across the Grosse Scheidegg to Meiringen. They continued across the Grimsel Pass, through the upper Valais to Brig and on to the Aletsch glacier and Zermatt.
In October of the same year, Tolkien began studying at Exeter College, Oxford. He initially read classics but changed his course in 1913 to English language and literature, graduating in 1915 with first-class honours. Among his tutors at Oxford was Joseph Wright, whose Primer of the Gothic Language had inspired Tolkien as a schoolboy.
Courtship and marriage
At the age of 16, Tolkien met Edith Mary Bratt, who was three years his senior, when he and his brother Hilary moved into the boarding house where she lived in Duchess Road, Edgbaston. According to Humphrey Carpenter, "Edith and Ronald took to frequenting Birmingham teashops, especially one which had a balcony overlooking the pavement. There they would sit and throw sugarlumps into the hats of passers-by, moving to the next table when the sugar bowl was empty. ... With two people of their personalities and in their position, romance was bound to flourish. Both were orphans in need of affection, and they found that they could give it to each other. During the summer of 1909, they decided that they were in love."
His guardian, Father Morgan, considered it "altogether unfortunate" that his surrogate son was romantically involved with an older, Protestant woman; Tolkien wrote that the combined tensions contributed to his having "muffed [his] exams". Morgan prohibited him from meeting, talking to, or even corresponding with Edith until he was 21. Tolkien obeyed this prohibition to the letter, with one notable early exception, over which Father Morgan threatened to cut short his university career if he did not stop.
On the evening of his 21st birthday, Tolkien wrote to Edith, who was living with family friend C. H. Jessop at Cheltenham. He declared that he had never ceased to love her, and asked her to marry him. Edith replied that she had already accepted the proposal of George Field, the brother of one of her closest school friends. But Edith said she had agreed to marry Field only because she felt "on the shelf" and had begun to doubt that Tolkien still cared for her. She explained that, because of Tolkien's letter, everything had changed.
On 8 January 1913, Tolkien travelled by train to Cheltenham and was met on the platform by Edith. The two took a walk into the countryside, sat under a railway viaduct, and talked. By the end of the day, Edith had agreed to accept Tolkien's proposal. She wrote to Field and returned her engagement ring. Field was "dreadfully upset at first", and the Field family was "insulted and angry". Upon learning of Edith's new plans, Jessop wrote to her guardian, "I have nothing to say against Tolkien, he is a cultured gentleman, but his prospects are poor in the extreme, and when he will be in a position to marry I cannot imagine. Had he adopted a profession it would have been different."
Following their engagement, Edith reluctantly announced that she was converting to Catholicism at Tolkien's insistence. Jessop, "like many others of his age and class ... strongly anti-Catholic", was infuriated, and he ordered Edith to find other lodgings.
Edith Bratt and Ronald Tolkien were formally engaged at Birmingham in January 1913, and married at St Mary Immaculate Catholic Church at Warwick, on 22 March 1916. In his 1941 letter to Michael, Tolkien expressed admiration for his wife's willingness to marry a man with no job, little money, and no prospects except the likelihood of being killed in the Great War.
First World War
In August 1914, Britain entered the First World War. Tolkien's relatives were shocked when he elected not to volunteer immediately for the British Army. In a 1941 letter to his son Michael, Tolkien recalled: "In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly. It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage." Instead, Tolkien, "endured the obloquy", and entered a programme by which he delayed enlistment until completing his degree. By the time he passed his finals in July 1915, Tolkien recalled that the hints were "becoming outspoken from relatives". He was commissioned as a temporary second lieutenant in the Lancashire Fusiliers on 15 July 1915. He trained with the 13th (Reserve) Battalion on Cannock Chase, Rugeley Camp near to Rugeley, Staffordshire, for 11 months. In a letter to Edith, Tolkien complained: "Gentlemen are rare among the superiors, and even human beings rare indeed." Following their wedding, Lieutenant and Mrs. Tolkien took up lodgings near the training camp. On 2 June 1916, Tolkien received a telegram summoning him to Folkestone for posting to France. The Tolkiens spent the night before his departure in a room at the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Edgbaston, Birmingham. He later wrote: "Junior officers were being killed off, a dozen a minute. Parting from my wife then... it was like a death."
France
On 5 June 1916, Tolkien boarded a troop transport for an overnight voyage to Calais. Like other soldiers arriving for the first time, he was sent to the British Expeditionary Force's (BEF) base depot at Étaples. On 7 June, he was informed that he had been assigned as a signals officer to the 11th (Service) Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers. The battalion was part of the 74th Brigade, 25th Division. While waiting to be summoned to his unit, Tolkien sank into boredom. To pass the time, he composed a poem entitled The Lonely Isle, which was inspired by his feelings during the sea crossing to Calais. To evade the British Army's postal censorship, he developed a code of dots by which Edith could track his movements. He left Étaples on 27 June 1916 and joined his battalion at Rubempré, near Amiens. He found himself commanding enlisted men who were drawn mainly from the mining, milling, and weaving towns of Lancashire. According to John Garth, he "felt an affinity for these working class men", but military protocol prohibited friendships with "other ranks". Instead, he was required to "take charge of them, discipline them, train them, and probably censor their letters ... If possible, he was supposed to inspire their love and loyalty." Tolkien later lamented, "The most improper job of any man ... is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity."
Battle of the Somme
Tolkien arrived at the Somme in early July 1916. In between terms behind the lines at Bouzincourt, he participated in the assaults on the Schwaben Redoubt and the Leipzig salient. Tolkien's time in combat was a terrible stress for Edith, who feared that every knock on the door might carry news of her husband's death. Edith could track her husband's movements on a map of the Western Front. The Reverend Mervyn S. Evers, Anglican chaplain to the Lancashire Fusiliers, recorded that Tolkien and his brother officers were eaten by "hordes of lice" which found the Medical Officer's ointment merely "a kind of hors d'oeuvre and the little beggars went at their feast with renewed vigour." On 27 October 1916, as his battalion attacked Regina Trench, Tolkien contracted trench fever, a disease carried by lice. He was invalided to England on 8 November 1916. Many of his dearest school friends were killed in the war. Among their number were Rob Gilson of the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, who was killed on the first day of the Somme while leading his men in the assault on Beaumont Hamel. Fellow T.C.B.S. member Geoffrey Smith was killed during the battle, when a German artillery shell landed on a first-aid post. Tolkien's battalion was almost completely wiped out following his return to England.
According to John Garth, Kitchener's army at once marked existing social boundaries and counteracted the class system by throwing everyone into a desperate situation together. Tolkien was grateful, writing that it had taught him "a deep sympathy and feeling for the Tommy; especially the plain soldier from the agricultural counties".
Home front
A weak and emaciated Tolkien spent the remainder of the war alternating between hospitals and garrison duties, being deemed medically unfit for general service. During his recovery in a cottage in Little Haywood, Staffordshire, he began to work on what he called The Book of Lost Tales, beginning with The Fall of Gondolin. Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to create a mythology for England, a project he would abandon without ever completing. Throughout 1917 and 1918 his illness kept recurring, but he had recovered enough to do home service at various camps. It was at this time that Edith bore their first child, John Francis Reuel Tolkien. In a 1941 letter, Tolkien described his son John as "(conceived and carried during the starvation-year of 1917 and the great U-Boat campaign) round about the Battle of Cambrai, when the end of the war seemed as far off as it does now". Tolkien was promoted to the temporary rank of lieutenant on 6 January 1918. When he was stationed at Kingston upon Hull, he and Edith went walking in the woods at nearby Roos, and Edith began to dance for him in a clearing among the flowering hemlock. After his wife's death in 1971, Tolkien remembered,
On 16 July 1919 Tolkien was taken off active service, at Fovant, on Salisbury Plain, with a temporary disability pension.
Academic and writing career
On 3 November 1920, Tolkien was demobilized and left the army, retaining his rank of lieutenant. His first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as reader in English language at the University of Leeds, becoming the youngest member of the academic staff there. While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon; both became academic standard works for several decades. He translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.
In mid-1919, he began to tutor undergraduates privately, most importantly those of Lady Margaret Hall and St Hugh's College, given that the women's colleges were in great need of good teachers in their early years, and Tolkien as a married professor (then still not common) was considered suitable, as a bachelor don would not have been.
During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings, while living at 20 Northmoor Road in North Oxford. He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name "Nodens", following Sir Mortimer Wheeler's unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.
Beowulf
In the 1920s, Tolkien undertook a translation of Beowulf, which he finished in 1926, but did not publish. It was finally edited by his son and published in 2014, more than 40 years after Tolkien's death and almost 90 years after its completion.
Ten years after finishing his translation, Tolkien gave a highly acclaimed lecture on the work, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics", which had a lasting influence on Beowulf research. Lewis E. Nicholson said that the article is "widely recognized as a turning point in Beowulfian criticism", noting that Tolkien established the primacy of the poetic nature of the work as opposed to its purely linguistic elements. At the time, the consensus of scholarship deprecated Beowulf for dealing with childish battles with monsters rather than realistic tribal warfare; Tolkien argued that the author of Beowulf was addressing human destiny in general, not as limited by particular tribal politics, and therefore the monsters were essential to the poem. Where Beowulf does deal with specific tribal struggles, as at Finnsburg, Tolkien argued firmly against reading in fantastic elements. In the essay, Tolkien also revealed how highly he regarded Beowulf: "Beowulf is among my most valued sources"; this influence may be seen throughout his Middle-earth legendarium.
According to Humphrey Carpenter, Tolkien began his series of lectures on Beowulf in a most striking way, entering the room silently, fixing the audience with a look, and suddenly declaiming in Old English the opening lines of the poem, starting "with a great cry of Hwæt!" It was a dramatic impersonation of an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it made the students realize that Beowulf was not just a set text but "a powerful piece of dramatic poetry". Decades later, W. H. Auden wrote to his former professor, thanking him for the "unforgettable experience" of hearing him recite Beowulf, and stating "The voice was the voice of Gandalf".
Second World War
In the run-up to the Second World War, Tolkien was earmarked as a codebreaker. In January 1939, he was asked to serve in the cryptographic department of the Foreign Office in the event of national emergency. Beginning on 27 March, he took an instructional course at the London HQ of the Government Code and Cypher School. He was informed in October that his services would not be required.
In 1945, Tolkien moved to Merton College, Oxford, becoming the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1959. He served as an external examiner for University College, Galway (now NUI Galway), for many years. In 1954 Tolkien received an honorary degree from the National University of Ireland (of which University College, Galway, was a constituent college). Tolkien completed The Lord of the Rings in 1948, close to a decade after the first sketches.
Family
The Tolkiens had four children: John Francis Reuel Tolkien (17 November 1917 – 22 January 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel Tolkien (22 October 1920 – 27 February 1984), Christopher John Reuel Tolkien (21 November 1924 – 16 January 2020) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel Tolkien (born 18 June 1929). Tolkien was very devoted to his children and sent them illustrated letters from Father Christmas when they were young.
Retirement
During his life in retirement, from 1959 up to his death in 1973, Tolkien received steadily increasing public attention and literary fame. In 1961, his friend C. S. Lewis even nominated him for the Nobel Prize in Literature. The sales of his books were so profitable that he regretted that he had not chosen early retirement. In a 1972 letter, he deplored having become a cult-figure, but admitted that "even the nose of a very modest idol ... cannot remain entirely untickled by the sweet smell of incense!"
Fan attention became so intense that Tolkien had to take his phone number out of the public directory, and eventually he and Edith moved to Bournemouth, which was then a seaside resort patronized by the British upper middle class. Tolkien's status as a best-selling author gave them easy entry into polite society, but Tolkien deeply missed the company of his fellow Inklings. Edith, however, was overjoyed to step into the role of a society hostess, which had been the reason that Tolkien selected Bournemouth in the first place. The genuine and deep affection between Ronald and Edith was demonstrated by their care about the other's health, in details like wrapping presents, in the generous way he gave up his life at Oxford so she could retire to Bournemouth, and in her pride in his becoming a famous author. They were tied together, too, by love for their children and grandchildren.
In his retirement Tolkien was a consultant and translator for The Jerusalem Bible, published in 1966. He was initially assigned a larger portion to translate, but, due to other commitments, only managed to offer some criticisms of other contributors and a translation of the Book of Jonah.
Final years
Edith died on 29 November 1971, at the age of 82. Ronald returned to Oxford, where Merton College gave him convenient rooms near the High Street. He missed Edith, but enjoyed being back in the city.
Tolkien was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1972 New Year Honours and received the insignia of the Order at Buckingham Palace on 28 March 1972. In the same year Oxford University gave him an honorary Doctorate of Letters.
He had the name Luthien [sic] engraved on Edith's tombstone at Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford. When Tolkien died 21 months later on 2 September 1973 from a bleeding ulcer and chest infection, at the age of 81, he was buried in the same grave, with "Beren" added to his name. Tolkien's will was proven on 20 December 1973, with his estate valued at £190,577 (equivalent to £ in ).
Views
Religion
Tolkien's Catholicism was a significant factor in C. S. Lewis's conversion from atheism to Christianity, although Tolkien was dismayed that Lewis chose to join the Church of England. He once wrote to Rayner Unwin's daughter Camilla, who wished to know the purpose of life, that it was "to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks." He had a special devotion to the blessed sacrament, writing to his son Michael that in "the Blessed Sacrament ... you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves upon earth, and more than that". He accordingly encouraged frequent reception of Holy Communion, again writing to his son Michael that "the only cure for sagging of fainting faith is Communion." He believed the Catholic Church to be true most of all because of the pride of place and the honour in which it holds the Blessed Sacrament. In the last years of his life, Tolkien resisted the liturgical changes implemented after the Second Vatican Council, especially the use of English for the liturgy; he continued to make the responses in Latin, loudly, ignoring the rest of the congregation.
Race
Tolkien's fantasy writings have often been accused of embodying outmoded attitudes to race. However, scholars have noted that he was influenced by Victorian attitudes to race and to a literary tradition of monsters, and that he was anti-racist both in peacetime and during the two World Wars. With the late 19th century background of eugenics and a fear of moral decline, some critics saw the mention of race mixing in The Lord of the Rings as embodying scientific racism. Other commentators saw in Tolkien's orcs a reflection of wartime propaganda caricatures of the Japanese. Critics have noted, too, that the work embodies a moral geography, with good in the West, evil in the East. Against this, scholars have noted that Tolkien was opposed to peacetime Nazi racial theory, while in the Second World War he was equally opposed to anti-German propaganda. Other scholars have stated that Tolkien's Middle-earth is definitely polycultural and polylingual, and that attacks on Tolkien based on The Lord of the Rings often omit relevant evidence from the text.
Nature
During most of his own life conservationism was not yet on the political agenda, and Tolkien himself did not directly express conservationist views—except in some private letters, in which he tells about his fondness for forests and sadness at tree-felling. In later years, a number of authors of biographies or literary analyses of Tolkien conclude that during his writing of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien gained increased interest in the value of wild and untamed nature, and in protecting what wild nature was left in the industrialized world.
Writing
Influences
Tolkien's fantasy books on Middle-earth, especially The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, drew on a wide array of influences including his philological interest in language, Christianity, mythology, archaeology, ancient and modern literature, and personal experience. His philological work centred on the study of Old English literature, especially Beowulf, and he acknowledged its importance to his writings. He was a gifted linguist, influenced by Germanic, Celtic, Finnish, and Greek language and mythology. Commentators have attempted to identify many literary and topological antecedents for characters, places and events in Tolkien's writings. Some writers were important to him, including the Arts and Crafts polymath William Morris, and he undoubtedly made use of some real place-names, such as Bag End, the name of his aunt's home. He acknowledged, too, John Buchan and H. Rider Haggard, authors of modern adventure stories that he enjoyed. The effects of some specific experiences have been identified. Tolkien's childhood in the English countryside, and its urbanization by the growth of Birmingham, influenced his creation of the Shire, while his personal experience of fighting in the trenches of the First World War affected his depiction of Mordor.
Publications
"Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"
In addition to writing fiction, Tolkien was an author of academic literary criticism. His seminal 1936 lecture, later published as an article, revolutionized the treatment of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf by literary critics. The essay remains highly influential in the study of Old English literature to this day. Beowulf is one of the most significant influences upon Tolkien's later fiction, with major details of both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings being adapted from the poem.
"On Fairy-Stories"
This essay discusses the fairy-story as a literary form. It was initially written as the 1939 Andrew Lang Lecture at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. Tolkien focuses on Andrew Lang's work as a folklorist and collector of fairy tales. He disagreed with Lang's broad inclusion, in his Fairy Book collections, of traveller's tales, beast fables, and other types of stories. Tolkien held a narrower perspective, viewing fairy stories as those that took place in Faerie, an enchanted realm, with or without fairies as characters. He viewed them as the natural development of the interaction of human imagination and human language.
Children's books and other short works
In addition to his mythopoeic compositions, Tolkien enjoyed inventing fantasy stories to entertain his children. He wrote annual Christmas letters from Father Christmas for them, building up a series of short stories (later compiled and published as The Father Christmas Letters). Other works included Mr. Bliss and Roverandom (for children), and Leaf by Niggle (part of Tree and Leaf), The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Roverandom and Smith of Wootton Major, like The Hobbit, borrowed ideas from his legendarium.
The Hobbit
Tolkien never expected his stories to become popular, but by sheer accident a book called The Hobbit, which he had written some years before for his own children, came in 1936 to the attention of Susan Dagnall, an employee of the London publishing firm George Allen & Unwin, who persuaded Tolkien to submit it for publication. When it was published a year later, the book attracted adult readers as well as children, and it became popular enough for the publishers to ask Tolkien to produce a sequel.
The Lord of the Rings
The request for a sequel prompted Tolkien to begin what became his most famous work: the epic novel The Lord of the Rings (originally published in three volumes in 1954–1955). Tolkien spent more than ten years writing the primary narrative and appendices for The Lord of the Rings, during which time he received the constant support of the Inklings, in particular his closest friend C. S. Lewis, the author of The Chronicles of Narnia. Both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set against the background of The Silmarillion, but in a time long after it.
Tolkien at first intended The Lord of the Rings to be a children's tale in the style of The Hobbit, but it quickly grew darker and more serious in the writing. Though a direct sequel to The Hobbit, it addressed an older audience, drawing on the immense backstory of Beleriand that Tolkien had constructed in previous years, and which eventually saw posthumous publication in The Silmarillion and other volumes. Tolkien strongly influenced the fantasy genre that grew up after the book's success.
The Lord of the Rings became immensely popular in the 1960s and has remained so ever since, ranking as one of the most popular works of fiction of the 20th century, judged by both sales and reader surveys. In the 2003 "Big Read" survey conducted by the BBC, The Lord of the Rings was found to be the UK's "Best-loved Novel". Australians voted The Lord of the Rings "My Favourite Book" in a 2004 survey conducted by the Australian ABC. In a 1999 poll of Amazon.com customers, The Lord of the Rings was judged to be their favourite "book of the millennium". In 2002 Tolkien was voted the 92nd "greatest Briton" in a poll conducted by the BBC, and in 2004 he was voted 35th in the SABC3's Great South Africans, the only person to appear in both lists. His popularity is not limited to the English-speaking world: in a 2004 poll inspired by the UK's "Big Read" survey, about 250,000 Germans found The Lord of the Rings to be their favourite work of literature.
The Silmarillion
Tolkien wrote a brief "Sketch of the Mythology", which included the tales of Beren and Lúthien and of Túrin; and that sketch eventually evolved into the Quenta Silmarillion, an epic history that Tolkien started three times but never published. Tolkien desperately hoped to publish it along with The Lord of the Rings, but publishers (both Allen & Unwin and Collins) declined. Moreover, printing costs were very high in 1950s Britain, requiring The Lord of the Rings to be published in three volumes. The story of this continuous redrafting is told in the posthumous series The History of Middle-earth, edited by Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien. From around 1936, Tolkien began to extend this framework to include the tale of The Fall of Númenor, which was inspired by the legend of Atlantis.
Tolkien appointed his son Christopher to be his literary executor, and he (with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay, later a well-known fantasy author in his own right) organized some of this material into a single coherent volume, published as The Silmarillion in 1977. It received the Locus Award for Best Fantasy novel in 1978.
Unfinished Tales and The History of Middle-earth
In 1980, Christopher Tolkien published a collection of more fragmentary material, under the title Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. In subsequent years (1983–1996), he published a large amount of the remaining unpublished materials, together with notes and extensive commentary, in a series of twelve volumes called The History of Middle-earth. They contain unfinished, abandoned, alternative, and outright contradictory accounts, since they were always a work in progress for Tolkien and he only rarely settled on a definitive version for any of the stories. There is not complete consistency between The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, the two most closely related works, because Tolkien never fully integrated all their traditions into each other. He commented in 1965, while editing The Hobbit for a third edition, that he would have preferred to rewrite the book completely because of the style of its prose.
Works compiled by Christopher Tolkien
Manuscript locations
Before his death, Tolkien negotiated the sale of the manuscripts, drafts, proofs and other materials related to his then-published works—including The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and Farmer Giles of Ham—to the Department of Special Collections and University Archives at Marquette University's John P. Raynor, S.J., Library in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After his death his estate donated the papers containing Tolkien's Silmarillion mythology and his academic work to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. The Bodleian Library held an exhibition of his work in 2018, including more than 60 items which had never been seen in public before.
In 2009, a partial draft of Language and Human Nature, which Tolkien had begun co-writing with C. S. Lewis but had never completed, was discovered at the Bodleian Library.
Languages and philology
Linguistic career
Both Tolkien's academic career and his literary production are inseparable from his love of language and philology. He specialized in English philology at university and in 1915 graduated with Old Norse as his special subject. He worked on the Oxford English Dictionary from 1918 and is credited with having worked on a number of words starting with the letter W, including walrus, over which he struggled mightily. In 1920, he became Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, where he claimed credit for raising the number of students of linguistics from five to twenty. He gave courses in Old English heroic verse, history of English, various Old English and Middle English texts, Old and Middle English philology, introductory Germanic philology, Gothic, Old Icelandic, and Medieval Welsh. When in 1925, aged thirty-three, Tolkien applied for the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College, Oxford, he boasted that his students of Germanic philology in Leeds had even formed a "Viking Club". He also had a certain, if imperfect, knowledge of Finnish.
Privately, Tolkien was attracted to "things of racial and linguistic significance", and in his 1955 lecture English and Welsh, which is crucial to his understanding of race and language, he entertained notions of "inherent linguistic predilections", which he termed the "native language" as opposed to the "cradle-tongue" which a person first learns to speak. He considered the West Midlands dialect of Middle English to be his own "native language", and, as he wrote to W. H. Auden in 1955, "I am a West-midlander by blood (and took to early west-midland Middle English as a known tongue as soon as I set eyes on it)."
Language construction
Parallel to Tolkien's professional work as a philologist, and sometimes overshadowing this work, to the effect that his academic output remained rather thin, was his affection for constructing languages. The most developed of these are Quenya and Sindarin, the etymological connection between which formed the core of much of Tolkien's legendarium. Language and grammar for Tolkien was a matter of aesthetics and euphony, and Quenya in particular was designed from "phonaesthetic" considerations; it was intended as an "Elven-latin", and was phonologically based on Latin, with ingredients from Finnish, Welsh, English, and Greek. A notable addition came in late 1945 with Adûnaic or Númenórean, a language of a "faintly Semitic flavour", connected with Tolkien's Atlantis legend, which by The Notion Club Papers ties directly into his ideas about the inability of language to be inherited, and via the "Second Age" and the story of Eärendil was grounded in the legendarium, thereby providing a link of Tolkien's 20th-century "real primary world" with the legendary past of his Middle-earth.
Tolkien considered languages inseparable from the mythology associated with them, and he consequently took a dim view of auxiliary languages: in 1930 a congress of Esperantists were told as much by him, in his lecture A Secret Vice, "Your language construction will breed a mythology", but by 1956 he had concluded that "Volapük, Esperanto, Ido, Novial, &c, &c, are dead, far deader than ancient unused languages, because their authors never invented any Esperanto legends".
The popularity of Tolkien's books has had a small but lasting effect on the use of language in fantasy literature in particular, and even on mainstream dictionaries, which today commonly accept Tolkien's idiosyncratic spellings dwarves and dwarvish (alongside dwarfs and dwarfish), which had been little used since the mid-19th century and earlier. (In fact, according to Tolkien, had the Old English plural survived, it would have been dwarrows or dwerrows.) He also coined the term eucatastrophe, though it remains mainly used in connection with his own work.
Artwork
Tolkien learnt to paint and draw as a child, and continued to do so all his adult life. From early in his writing career, the development of his stories was accompanied by drawings and paintings, especially of landscapes, and by maps of the lands in which the tales were set. He also produced pictures to accompany the stories told to his own children, including those later published in Mr Bliss and Roverandom, and sent them elaborately illustrated letters purporting to come from Father Christmas. Although he regarded himself as an amateur, the publisher used the author's own cover art, his maps, and full-page illustrations for the early editions of The Hobbit. He prepared maps and illustrations for The Lord of the Rings, but the first edition contained only the maps, his calligraphy for the inscription on the One Ring, and his ink drawing of the Doors of Durin. Much of his artwork was collected and published in 1995 as a book: J. R. R. Tolkien: Artist and Illustrator. The book discusses Tolkien's paintings, drawings, and sketches, and reproduces approximately 200 examples of his work. Catherine McIlwaine curated a major exhibition of Tolkien's artwork at the Bodleian Library, Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth, accompanied by a book of the same name that analyses Tolkien's achievement and illustrates the full range of the types of artwork that he created.
Legacy
Influence
While many other authors had published works of fantasy before Tolkien, the great success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings led directly to a popular resurgence and the shaping of the modern fantasy genre. This has caused Tolkien to be popularly identified as the "father" of modern fantasy literature—or, more precisely, of high fantasy, as in the work of authors such as Ursula Le Guin and her Earthsea series. In 2008, The Times ranked him sixth on a list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". His influence has extended to music, including the Danish group the Tolkien Ensemble's setting of all the poetry in The Lord of the Rings to their vocal music; and to a broad range of games set in Middle-earth.
Adaptations
In a 1951 letter to publisher Milton Waldman (1895–1976), Tolkien wrote about his intentions to create a "body of more or less connected legend", of which "[t]he cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama". The hands and minds of many artists have indeed been inspired by Tolkien's legends. Personally known to him were Pauline Baynes (Tolkien's favourite illustrator of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Farmer Giles of Ham) and Donald Swann (who set the music to The Road Goes Ever On). Queen Margrethe II of Denmark created illustrations to The Lord of the Rings in the early 1970s. She sent them to Tolkien, who was struck by the similarity they bore in style to his own drawings.
Tolkien was not implacably opposed to the idea of a dramatic adaptation, however, and sold the film, stage and merchandise rights of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings to United Artists in 1968. United Artists never made a film, although director John Boorman was planning a live-action film in the early 1970s. In 1976, the rights were sold to Tolkien Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company, and the first film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was released in 1978 as an animated rotoscoping film directed by Ralph Bakshi with screenplay by the fantasy writer Peter S. Beagle. It covered only the first half of the story of The Lord of the Rings. In 1977, an animated musical television film of The Hobbit was made by Rankin-Bass, and in 1980, they produced the animated musical television film The Return of the King, which covered some of the portions of The Lord of the Rings that Bakshi was unable to complete.
From 2001 to 2003, New Line Cinema released The Lord of the Rings as a trilogy of live-action films that were filmed in New Zealand and directed by Peter Jackson. The series was successful, performing extremely well commercially and winning numerous Oscars.
From 2012 to 2014, Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema released The Hobbit, a series of three films based on The Hobbit, with Peter Jackson serving as executive producer, director, and co-writer. The first instalment, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, was released in December 2012; the second, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, in December 2013; and the last instalment, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, in December 2014. In 2017, Amazon acquired the global television rights to The Lord of the Rings, for a series of new stories set before The Fellowship of the Ring.
Memorials
Tolkien and the characters and places from his works have become eponyms of many real-world objects. These include geographical features on Titan (Saturn's largest moon),
street names such as There and Back Again Lane, inspired by The Hobbit,
mountains such as Mount Shadowfax, Mount Gandalf and Mount Aragorn in Canada,
companies such as Palantir Technologies,
and species including the wasp Shireplitis tolkieni, 37 new species of Elachista moths, and many fossils.
Since 2003, The Tolkien Society has organized Tolkien Reading Day, which takes place on 25 March in schools around the world. In 2013, Pembroke College, Oxford University, established an annual lecture on fantasy literature in Tolkien's honour. In 2012, Tolkien was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover—to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admired. A 2019 biographical film, Tolkien, focused on Tolkien's early life and war experiences. The Tolkien family and estate stated that they did not "approve of, authorise or participate in the making of" the film.
Several blue plaques in England that commemorate places associated with Tolkien, including for his childhood, his workplaces, and places he visited.
Canonization process
On 2 September 2017, the Oxford Oratory, Tolkien's parish church during his time in Oxford, offered its first Mass for the intention of Tolkien's cause for beatification to be opened. A prayer was written for his cause.
Bibliography
Notes
References
Primary
Secondary
Sources
Further reading
A small selection of books about Tolkien and his works:
External links
The Tolkien Estate Website
Journal of Inklings Studies peer-reviewed journal on Tolkien and his literary circle, based at Oxford
HarperCollins Tolkien Website
Biography at the Tolkien Society
Archival material at Leeds University Library
Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth exhibition at the Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Encyclopedia of Fantasy
J. R. R. Tolkien at the Science Fiction Encyclopedia
Additional Resources for J. R. R. Tolkien compiled by the Marion E. Wade Center
BBC film (1968) featuring Tolkien
Audio recording of Tolkien from 1929 on a language learning gramophone disc
1892 births
1973 deaths
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English novelists
20th-century English poets
20th-century philologists
20th-century translators
Academics of the University of Leeds
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Anglo-Saxon studies scholars
Arthurian scholars
British Army personnel of World War I
British monarchists
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
Constructed language creators
Creators of writing systems
English environmentalists
English children's writers
English Esperantists
English fantasy writers
British academics of English literature
English male novelists
English male short story writers
English people of German descent
English philologists
English Roman Catholics
English short story writers
Fellows of Merton College, Oxford
Fellows of Pembroke College, Oxford
Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature
Inklings
Lancashire Fusiliers officers
Linguists from England
Merton Professors of English Language and Literature
Mythopoeic writers
People educated at King Edward's School, Birmingham
People educated at St Philip's School
People from Bloemfontein
People from Headington
Rawlinson and Bosworth Professors of Anglo-Saxon
Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductees
South African emigrants to the United Kingdom
J.R.R.
Translators from Old English
Writers from Birmingham, West Midlands
Writers on Germanic paganism
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Writers from Oxford
Fantasy artists
Lost Generation writers
Roman Catholic writers | false | [
"Albert Salomon (1883–1976) was a Jewish-German surgeon at the Royal Surgical University Clinic in Berlin. He is best known for his study of early mastectomies that is considered the beginning of mammography. He was the father of the artist Charlotte Salomon, who was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust.\n\nBreast pathology\nIn 1913, Salomon performed a study on 3,000 mastectomies. In the study, Salomon compared X-rays of the breasts to the actual removed tissue, observing specifically microcalcifications. By doing so, he was able to establish the difference as seen on an X-ray image between cancerous and non-cancerous tumors in the breast. Salomon's mammographs provided substantial information about the spread of tumors and their borders. In the midst of the study, Salomon also discovered that there are multiple types of breast cancer. Salomon was unable to use this technique in practice because he did not work with breast cancer patients, and although he published his findings in 1913, mammography did not become a common practice until years later.\n\nLater life\nSalomon was dismissed from the University of Berlin in 1933 after Adolf Hitler came to power. He was later imprisoned in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He was released in 1939 and left for the Netherlands. From there he was deported to the Westerbork transit camp in (Drente) Holland, from where he escaped in 1943 and went into hiding in the Netherlands until 1945. After World War II ended, he moved to Amsterdam, where he worked as a professor.\n\nReferences\n\nGerman surgeons\nJewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands\n1883 births\n1976 deaths\n20th-century surgeons",
"Emil Karl Alexander Flaminius (1807, Küstrin - 7 October 1893, Berlin) was a Prussian architect and master builder.\n\nHistory\n\nFlaminius grew up in Küstrin during the Napoleonic Wars and the period of reconstruction after the departure of the Napoleonic occupying forces in 1814. For twenty years he worked on the Oder and Warthe dykes in his home town. In 1828 he moved to Berlin to study architecture at the Bauakademie, where he came into contact with Karl Friedrich Schinkel. He frequently collaborated with Schinkel in the following years and even began to implement some of Schinkel's projects whilst still studying. For example, aged only 21, he worked with Schinkel on repairing the Frankfurter Marienkirche after the collapse of its south tower - the project did not replace the south tower, but did produce one of the largest works of Brick Gothic.\n\nFlaminius graduated from the Bauakademie in 1830, after only two years' study. Between 1832 and 1836 he worked to erect a new home for the Bauakademie, using designs by Schinkel.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1807 births\n1893 deaths\n19th-century German architects\n19th-century Prussian people\nPeople from Kostrzyn nad Odrą"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years"
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | Where did Victoria study? | 1 | Where did Victoria Wood study? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"The J. T. Jecker House at 104 N. Liberty in Victoria, Texas, United States, was built in 1870. It was designed by architect Jules Leffland in Late Victorian architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1987.\n\nIt is a two-story wood-frame house with a two-story three-bay porch on the five-bay front of the building. The original house, built c.1870, is believed to have been the home of Dr. James B.P. January, who served as physician for Sam Houston's army during the Texas Revolution. In 1904 it was renovated for Joe T. Jecker, then the owner, to designs by architect Jules Leffland. In 1983 it appeared much as it did in 1904.\n\nIt was listed on the NRHP as part of a study which listed numerous historic resources in the Victoria area.\n\nSee also\n\nNational Register of Historic Places listings in Victoria County, Texas\nRecorded Texas Historic Landmarks in Victoria County\n\nReferences\n\nHouses completed in 1870\nHouses in Victoria, Texas\nHouses on the National Register of Historic Places in Texas\nVictorian architecture in Texas\nNational Register of Historic Places in Victoria, Texas\nRecorded Texas Historic Landmarks",
"Frank Audley Henry Boynton (1 January 1887 – 3 March 1946) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Melbourne, Geelong and University in the Victorian Football League (VFL).\n\nBoynton was born in Prahran, Victoria, the eldest child of Thomas Henry Boynton and Agnes Amelia Dawes. The family lived in Balranald where Boynton and Dawes was a major grocery shop. He was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, where he was a prefect and champion athlete, cricketer, footballer and rower. He was a notable athlete while studying medicine at the University of Melbourne, being awarded four sporting blues and playing VFL football for five seasons. After one game with Melbourne in 1906, he played most games in Geelong's 1907 season. He then played intermittently for University during their first three seasons in the VFL.\n\nBoynton left Melbourne to continue to study medicine in Adelaide but did not finish the course. He later moved to Perth where he sold farm machinery. In 1925 he married Mary Elizabeth Smith and they lived in Northam, Western Australia until his death in 1946.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nDemonWiki profile\n\n1887 births\n1946 deaths\nAustralian rules footballers from New South Wales\nMelbourne Football Club players\nGeelong Football Club players\nUniversity Football Club players\nPeople educated at Wesley College (Victoria)"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,"
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | Did she received college education? | 2 | Did Victoria Wood receive college education? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"Ethel Hurlbatt (1 July 1866 Bickley, Kent – 22 March 1934 Tours, France) was Principal of Bedford College, University of London, and later Warden of Royal Victoria College, the women's college of McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, which had opened in 1899.\n\nEducation\nShe was educated privately and then read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford, from 1888–1892 gaining a second. Her BA and MA were conferred by Trinity College, Dublin in 1905 as Oxford allowed women to sit the examinations but did not confer degrees on women at that time. She did however receive an honorary MA from Oxford in 1925.\n\nCareer\nAfter an extra year at Oxford doing work in the Bodleian Library, in 1892 she became principal of Aberdare Hall, a women student's only hall at Cardiff University College, now Cardiff University. In 1898 she became principal of Bedford College but resigned in 1906 due to ill health. From 1907 till retirement in 1929 she was Warden of Royal Victoria College. Her service to the college was recognized in 1930 when she received an honorary LLD from McGill.\n\nDuring retirement she travelled widely pursuing her interest in sketching. In the year before she died she had several heart attacks, complicated by influenza. She was recognised for her pioneering work in women's education combined with loyalty to the institutions she worked for. She was unmarried.\n\nReferences\n\nPublications\n Women and McGill Ethel Hurlbatt (1920)\n\nExternal links\n Profile, McGill.ca; accessed 25 April 2016.\n\n1866 births\n1934 deaths\nAlumni of Somerville College, Oxford\nMcGill University faculty\nPeople associated with Bedford College, London",
"Shahida Badsha is a retired two-star general of the Pakistan Army. She is the former principal of Army Medical College, Rawalpindi. She is daughter of Major General R.G.L.G. Badsha. She was awarded Hilal-e-Imtiaz military, which is the second highest distinction and award in Pakistan. She is passionate about improving medical education in Pakistan and so joined the doctoral program in Curriculum Studies in 2019.\n\nEducation\nBadsha did her MBBS from Khyber Medical College in 1977. She received MCPS, HPE on 18 December 2016\n\nDistinction\nShe is the second female general of Pakistan, after Shahida Malik, and first female commandant of Army Medical College.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Index of Shahida Badsha's papers at PakMediNet\n\nPakistani generals\nFemale army generals\nPakistani military doctors\nPeople of the insurgency in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\nWomen in warfare post-1945\nLiving people\nPakistani female military officers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nKhyber Medical College alumni"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham."
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham? | 3 | How did things go for Victoria Wood at the University of Birmingham? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | false | [
"Wendy Demark-Wahnefried is currently employed as a professor, the chair of nutritional sciences, and the associate director for cancer prevention at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. In the past she was employed in the Medical Center at Duke University. Demark-Wahnefried’s training is rooted mostly in biochemistry, behavioral science, and genetics. She graduated from the University of Michigan in 1978 where she earned her bachelor's degree in Nutritional science and Biochemistry. She currently serves as a member of different panels that are very prominent in the field of cancer research. Demark-Wahnefried is on the panel for the American Cancer Society and the Institute of Medicine and Cancer Research. One of her main research interests deals with how diet and genetic interactions affect breast and prostate cancer.\n\nOver the years, her research has dealt with topics in basic nutritional science, but has also done clinical research that looks at how nutrition in cancer patients. Through this focus of her research, her lab has done some of the largest research looking at how the metabolism changes in response to different cancer treatments. One of her largest research findings deals with providing gardens to better the dietary habits of cancer survivors. Demark-Wahnefried has received a grant and has expanded the Harvest for Health study which is the study that looks at how changes in dietary habits can affect the lives of cancer survivors. She will be looking at 426 different cancer survivors to collect data for her research.\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nLiving people\nUniversity of Alabama at Birmingham faculty\nCancer researchers\nUniversity of Michigan alumni",
"Una Martin is a professor of clinical pharmacology and the deputy pro-vice chancellor for equalities at the University of Birmingham. She is an expert in hypertension and ambulatory monitoring. She is a Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.\n\nEarly life and education \nMartin grew up in Ireland, where her parents were dentists. Her father was Dr Nicholas Martin and her mother was Josephine Mary (Maura) Martin. She studied medicine at the University of Dublin and graduated in 1983. During her studies she completed an intercalated degree in pharmacology. Martin trained to registrar level in cardiology in Dublin before moving to Edinburgh for her doctoral studies. Martin earned a PhD at the University of Edinburgh.\n\nResearch and career \nMartin joined the University of Southampton as a lecturer in clinical pharmacology. She worked on allergic rhinitis and studied whether nitric oxide in exhaled breath could be used to diagnose asthma. She was made a senior lecturer at the University of Birmingham in 1996. She had just given birth to her first child. She identified that patients with hypertension experienced less pain than those with normal blood pressure. She wondered whether this diminished pain perception could be part of a larger impairment, eventually impacting memory. Whilst hypertension became characterised by cognitive deficits, Martin studied the reaction times of people with hypertension and found that reaction times did not differ between people with and without hypertension. Whilst diagnosis of hypertension is typically made using blood pressure measurements in a clinic, Martin pointed out that ambulatory monitoring is the most cost effective and correlates best with cardiovascular outcomes.\n\nMartin is the lead of the Hypertension Service at University Hospitals Birmingham. She has called for people with mild hypertension to try more healthy lifestyles before turning to pharmaceuticals for hypertension. She developed the NICE Clinical Guideline on Hyperternsion (CG127). She has studied the influence of ethnicity on blood pressure measurement. She has investigated the challenges in treating hypertension in elderly patients due to complications with medicine, as well as the risks of treating women of child-bearing age with antihypertensive drugs. The proportion of the UK population who are elderly is increasing, and they are the biggest consumers of drugs, often taking unnecessary medication and Martin has investigated when non-drug therapies can be used in the treatment of elderly patients. Martin has been part of various clinical trials using hypertensives, and has examined the effectiveness of personalised treatment. She has investigated how to manage and diagnose resistant hypertension.\n\nMartin has been involved in the development of undergraduate education; creating the Prescribers’ Licence, which eventually became the National Prescribing Assessment. In 2009 she established the Dr Nicholas and Mrs Maura Martin Scholarship at University College Dublin, a €2000 scholarship for clinical medical electives. She investigated the use of control charts to monitor clinical variables in four conditions; hypertension, asthma, renal function and diabetes.\n\nMartin became programme director of the Wellcome Trust Research Facility at the University of Birmingham in 2014 and was promoted to professor in 2015. She was elected to the editorial board of the British Journal of Cardiology in 2017.\n\nEquality and advocacy \nMartin is involved with activities to promote equality and diversity at the University of Birmingham. Since 2007 she has chaired the Women in Academic Medicine group at the University of Birmingham. She led the University of Birmingham Medical School silver Athena SWAN application in 2014. She was made deputy pro-vice-chancellor for equalities in 2015. Martin is leading on the University of Birmingham application to the Race Equality Charter.\n\nReferences \n\nIrish women medical doctors\nAlumni of University College Dublin\nAcademics of the University of Birmingham\nBritish women medical doctors\nHypertension\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.",
"How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham?",
"I don't know."
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | In addition to Victoria Wood's education, are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.",
"How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday."
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | Did she learn how to play the piano? | 5 | Did Victoria Wood learn how to play the piano? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"How to Play the Piano was a British television series which was aired in 1950 on BBC. In the programme, Sidney Harrison showed how to play the piano to a pupil, Edward Goodwin. Episode titles included \"how to practise\", \"how to play with expression\", and \"how do you play?\". It aired in a 30-minute time-slot.\n\nSee also\nPiano Lesson TV series\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nHow to Play the Piano on IMDb\nhow long does it take to learn piano\nHow to Learn How to Play Piano\n\n1950s British music television series\n1950 British television series debuts\n1950 British television series endings\nLost BBC episodes\nBBC Television shows\nBlack-and-white British television shows\nBritish live television series",
"Piano lessons are what you take to learn how to play the piano.\n\nPiano Lessons may also refer to:\n Piano Lessons (book), a 2009 non-fiction book by Anna Goldsworthy\n Piano Lessons (TV series), a 1931 American television series\n \"Piano Lessons\" (song), a song by Porcupine Tree"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.",
"How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday.",
"Did she learn how to play the piano?",
"I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time."
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | Did this help with her carreer? | 6 | Did learning how to play the piano help with Victoria Wood's career? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"Eleuterio Antón (born 30 March 1950) is a Spanish long-distance runner. He competed in the marathon at the 1980 Summer Olympics.\n\nHe finished 3rd in Amsterdam in 1982 with 2h14:14 and obtained so the Spanish record. He developed his carreer in helping people with disabilities working for ONCE then for FEDC. Currently he is giving support to FEDDF. \n\nHe continues advocating for athletics and adaptive sports at global level.\n\nMarcas campeonato de España de Maratón\n\nArticles\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1950 births\nLiving people\nAthletes (track and field) at the 1980 Summer Olympics\nSpanish male long-distance runners\nSpanish male marathon runners\nOlympic athletes of Spain",
"Anna Pammrová (29 June 1860, Kralice nad Oslavou – 19 September 1945, Žďárec) was a Czech writer, feminist and philosopher. She had a difficult personal life with an unhappy childhood and marriage. After her divorce, she lived in poverty in a forest with her two children. Her daughter died and her son escaped and did not return. She survived with the help of her friends. Throughout her life she corresponded with her friend Otokar Březina who she met in Jinošov in 1887 and their letters resurfaced in 2008. Her autobiographical fragmentary novel 'Antieva' was published posthumously in 1997.\n\nBibliography\n Alfa. Embryonální pokus o řešení ženské otázky, 1917\n O mateřství a pamateřství, 1919\n Cestou k zářnému cíli, 1925\n Zápisky nečitelné, 1936\n Odezva z lůna stvoření, 1937\n Mé vzpomínky na Otokara Březinu, 1940\n Zrcadlo duše, ed. J. Vitula, 1945\n Žena s duší lesa (výběr z dopisů A. P. Leonoře Pammrové-Pohorské), ed. L. Kuchař. 1970\n Dopisy A. P. rodině Havlových, před. I. M. Havel, SI 1982\n Antieva, Společnost Anny Pammrové, 1997\n\n1860 births\n1945 deaths\n20th-century Czech women writers\nCzech feminists\n20th-century Czech philosophers\nCzech women philosophers\nPeople from Třebíč District"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.",
"How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday.",
"Did she learn how to play the piano?",
"I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time.",
"Did this help with her carreer?",
"she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing."
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | What other skills does Victoria Wood have? | 7 | Besides playing the piano, what other skills does Victoria Wood have? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | true | [
"Victoria Wood (retitled Victoria Wood Presents for its 2007 DVD release) was a series of six one-off situation comedies written by and starring Victoria Wood in 1989, who took a break from sketches, two years after her successful sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV. Wood appeared as a fictionalised version of herself in all six episodes; she was generally identified only as \"Victoria\", but in the first episode was also addressed as \"Miss Wood\". Her real-life career was occasionally a plot point: in \"The Library\", it was said that she \"worked in TV\", and in Over To Pam characters recognised her as a comedian, though two confused her with Dawn French. Most notably, in the final episode, Staying In, she was taken to a party to perform as a stand-up comedian. Her character sometimes broke the fourth wall of TV and spoke directly to the camera, but not in every episode.\n\nProduction\n\nBored with the sketch format and with a yearning to recapture her previous success as a playwright, Wood came up with six individual sitcoms as a compromise. She admitted to finding the writing difficult. Though Wood was written as the central character, other lead parts were written with specific actresses in mind, such as Julie Walters and Una Stubbs. She said of the characters, \"I want people to like me and the people who play my friends, and not everybody else.\"\n\nUnlike As Seen on TV, the show was not filmed in front of a studio audience, though the recordings were later played for an audience to record a laugh track. Wood regretted this decision as it deprived her of the \"instant gratification\" of an audience response, and described the filming as a \"boring, diabolical and awful\" experience.\n\nReception\nThe series was met with a mixed critical reception. The series started out with an impressive 13 million viewers tuning in, but by the next week dropped to 11 million. The Daily Express called the show \"tiresome stuff\", while the Daily Mirror said Wood's targets were \"predictable and snobbish\". Wood later acknowledged, \"It wasn't as well written by me as it could have been, and I shouldn't have been in all the sketches.\" In retrospect, Screenonline was more positive in its review, saying, \"Modest in ambition and scale but rich in wit and acuity, the six playlets showcase Wood's eye for human foibles and her distinctively eccentric characters.\"\n\nEpisode guide\n\nScript collection\n\nIn 1991, the scripts of all six shows were published by Methuen London as Mens Sana in Thingummy Doodah, and Other Nuggets of Homely Fun. The book is dedicated \"To all the Old Bags in Equity, most of whom were in the series\". The book contains a preface by Wood about what it's like to make a TV programme:\n\nHome media\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nRadio Times Guide To TV Comedy on 'Victoria Wood'\n\nBBC television sitcoms\n1989 British television series debuts\n1989 British television series endings\n1980s British television sketch shows\nTelevision shows written by Victoria Wood",
"Julie Walters and Friends is a fifty-five minute long, one-off comedy sketch show showcasing the talents of actress Julie Walters. Sketches were written by Walters' frequent collaborators: Victoria Wood, Alan Bennett, Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale. Walters features in every sketch, mostly portraying new characters, though in one, she reprises Mrs Murray, her character from G.B.H., written by Bleasdale.\n\nSketches\nPart 1:\n\"Jayne Mansfield's Balls\", written by and featuring Victoria Wood\nTribute from Victoria Wood\n\"Mary Brazzle\", written by Victoria Wood\n\nPart 2:\n\"Seating Arrangements\", written by and featuring Victoria Wood\nTribute from Alan Bennett\n\"A Wife of Crime\", written by Alan Bennett\n\"Between the Lines\", song written by Victoria Wood\nTribute from Willy Russell\n\"I Hate Poets\", written by and featuring Willy Russell\n\nPart 3:\n\"A People Person\", written by and featuring Victoria Wood\n\"Tales of Old\", written by and featuring Victoria Wood\nTribute from Alan Bleasdale\n\"All About Michael\", written by Alan Bleasdale\n\"1920s Old Bag\", written by Victoria Wood\n\nProduction\nThe show was made by London Weekend Television for ITV and recorded at South Bank Television Centre. It was produced by Nicholas Barrett and directed by Alasdair Macmillan.\n\nThe show was nominated for the Best Light Entertainment (Programme or Series) award at the 1992 BAFTAs.\n\nHome media\nThe show was released on VHS and later on Region 2 DVD. The DVD was also included in a set of Victoria Wood's work for ITV.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1991 television specials\nITV sketch shows"
] |
[
"Victoria Wood",
"Early years",
"Where did Victoria study?",
"She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls,",
"Did she received college education?",
"She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.",
"How did things go for her at the University of Birmingham?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday.",
"Did she learn how to play the piano?",
"I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time.",
"Did this help with her carreer?",
"she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing.",
"What other skills does Victoria Wood have?",
"I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform"
] | C_de60332a81334105bbc5c4186456704e_1 | What roles did she performed? | 8 | What roles did Victoria Wood perform? | Victoria Wood | Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, and Nellie Wood (nee Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind. Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in Bury - both then in Lancashire. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary school and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth. She recalled in an interview for Desert Island Discs in 2007: I was always top of the class, and when I went to grammar school I could not deal with everyone being as clever... I went under. I was a mess, a bit of a misfit. I didn't have any friends, let alone try to be funny...I didn't do any work, didn't have clean clothes and didn't wash. If I didn't have any money I'd steal from people, and if I hadn't done my homework I'd steal someone else's. I was envious of all the groups: the horsey group, the girls who went out with boys, the clever ones. Looking back, I feel really sorry for that little girl. Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Victoria Wood (19 May 1953 – 20 April 2016) was an English comedian, actress, lyricist, singer, composer, pianist, screenwriter, producer and director.
Wood wrote and starred in dozens of sketches, plays, musicals, films and sitcoms over several decades and her live comedy act was interspersed with her own compositions which she performed at the piano. Much of her humour was grounded in everyday life and included references to activities, attitudes and products that are considered to exemplify Britain. She was noted for her skills in observational comedy and in satirising aspects of social class.
Wood started her career in 1974 by appearing on, and winning, the ATV talent show New Faces. She established herself as a comedy star in the 1980s, winning a BAFTA TV Award in 1986 for the sketch series Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–87), and became one of Britain's most popular stand-up comics, winning a second BAFTA for An Audience with Victoria Wood (1988). In the 1990s, she wrote and co-starred in the television film Pat and Margaret (1994), and the sitcom dinnerladies (1998–2000), which she also produced. She won two more BAFTA TV Awards, including Best Actress, for her 2006 ITV1 television film, Housewife, 49. Her frequent long-term collaborators included Julie Walters, Celia Imrie, Duncan Preston, and Anne Reid. In 2006, Wood came tenth in ITV's poll of the British public's 50 Greatest TV Stars.
Early life
Victoria Wood was the youngest child of Stanley Wood, an insurance salesman, who also wrote songs for his company's Christmas parties, was the author of the musical play "Clogs" based in a Lancashire village in 1887 and also wrote part time for Coronation Street, Northern Drift and others; and Ellen "Nellie" Wood (née Mape). She had three siblings: a brother, Chris, and two sisters, Penny and Rosalind.
Wood was born in Prestwich and brought up in nearby Bury. She was educated at Fairfield County Primary School and Bury Grammar School for Girls, where she immediately found herself out of her depth.
Wood developed eating disorders, but in 1968, her father gave her a piano for her 15th birthday. She later said of this unhappy time "The good thing about being isolated is you get a good look at what goes on. I was reading, writing and working at the piano all the time. I was doing a lot of other things that helped me to perform". Later that year, she joined the Rochdale Youth Theatre Workshop, where she felt she was "in the right place and knew what I was doing" and she made an impression with her comic skill and skill in writing. She went on to study drama at the University of Birmingham.
Career
1970s
Wood began her show business career while an undergraduate, appearing on the TV talent show New Faces in 1974. It led to an appearance in a sketch show featuring the series' winners The Summer Show. A further break came as a novelty act on the BBC's consumer affairs programme That's Life! in 1976. She had met long-term collaborator Julie Walters in 1971, when Wood applied to the Manchester School of Theatre, then part of Manchester Polytechnic. Coincidentally the pair met again when they appeared in the same theatre revue In at the Death in 1978 (for which Wood wrote a brief sketch). Its success led to the commissioning of Wood's first play Talent (in 1978), starring Hazel Clyne (in a role originally written for Walters), for which Wood won an award for the Most Promising New Writer. Peter Eckersley, the head of drama at Granada Television, saw Talent and invited Wood to create a television adaptation. This time, Julie Walters took the lead role, while Wood reprised her stage role.
1980–1988
The success of the television version of Talent led to Wood writing the follow-up Nearly a Happy Ending. Shortly afterwards she wrote a third play for Granada, Happy Since I Met You, again with Walters alongside Duncan Preston as the male lead. In 1980 she wrote and starred in the stage play Good Fun.
Recognising her talent, Eckersley offered Wood a sketch show, although Wood was unsure of the project: she only agreed to go ahead if Walters received equal billing. Eckersley came up with an obvious title – Wood and Walters, and the pilot episode was recorded. It led to a full series, featuring Duncan Preston and a supporting cast. In the period between the completion of the pilot and the shooting of the series, Eckersley died. Wood credited him with giving her her first big break, and felt that Wood and Walters suffered due to his death. She was not impressed by Brian Armstrong, his fill-in, and was of the opinion that he hired unsuitable supporting actors.
Wood appeared as a presenter in Yorkshire Television's 1984 schools television programme for hearing-impaired children, Insight, in a remake of the series originally presented by Derek Griffiths. In 1982 and 1983 she appeared as a panellist on BBC Radio 4's Just a Minute.
In October 1983 Wood performed her first solo stand-up show, Lucky Bag, in a five-week run at the King's Head Theatre in Islington. The show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre for a 12-night run in February 1984. Lucky Bag went on a short UK tour in November and December 1984 and was also released as a live album recorded at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983.
Wood left Granada in 1984 for the BBC, which promised her more creative control over projects. Later that year her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV went into production. Wood chose the actors: her friend Julie Walters once again starred, as did Duncan Preston. Wood's friends Celia Imrie, Susie Blake and Patricia Routledge were in the cast. As Seen on TV featured the Acorn Antiques series of sketches, parodying the low-budget soap opera Crossroads, and rumoured to be named after an antiques shop in her birthplace. Acorn Antiques is remembered for characters such as "Mrs Overall" (played by Walters), the deliberately bad camera angles and wobbling sets, and Celia Imrie's sarcastic tone as "Miss Babs". One of Wood's most popular comic songs, The Ballad of Barry and Freda (Let's Do It), originated on this show. It tells the story of Freda (a woman eager for sex) and Barry (an introverted man terrified of intimate relations), and makes clever use of allusions to a multitude of risqué activities while avoiding all taboo words.
Following the success of the first series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV, Wood went on tour again with Lucky Bag in March 1985. Scene, a documentary for BBC2 later that year, showed footage of Wood preparing for the tour.
A second series of Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV was made in 1986. Before filming began in the summer, Wood went on a short 23 date tour of England and Scotland during March and April. A final 'Special' 40-minute episode of As Seen on TV was made in 1987 and broadcast later that year.
During autumn 1987 Wood went on the road with what was to be her largest tour yet. The tour included a sell-out two-week run at the London Palladium, and had a second leg in the spring of 1988.
In 1988 she appeared in the BAFTA-winning An Audience with Victoria Wood for ITV. At the time of recording the show she was six months pregnant. The end of 1988 saw the release of her second live performance Victoria Wood Live, recorded at the Brighton Dome.
1989–1999
During this period Wood moved away from the sketch show format and into more self-contained works, often with a bittersweet flavour. Victoria Wood (six parts, 1989) featured Wood in several individual stories such as "We'd Quite Like To Apologise", set in an airport departure lounge, and "Over to Pam", set around a fictional talk show.
In May 1990, Wood began a large tour of the United Kingdom, which was followed by a ten-week run at the Strand Theatre in London titled Victoria Wood Up West. Wood took the show on the road again during March and April 1991, where it was recorded at the Mayflower Theatre in Southampton, and later released as Victoria Wood Sold Out in 1991.
In 1991, she appeared on the Comic Relief single performing "The Smile Song", the flipside to "The Stonk" (a record by ITV comedians
Gareth Hale and Norman Pace with charity supergroup The Stonkers).
A UK number-one single for one week on 23 March 1991, the record was the UK's 22nd-best-selling single of the year. However, even though it was a joint-single (with "The Smile Song" credited on the front of the single cover and listed as track 2 on the seven-inch and CD single rather than being a B-side), the UK singles chart compilers (now the Official Charts Company) did not credit her with having number one hit, in a situation similar to the fate of BAD II's "Rush", the AA-side of the preceding number one, "Should I Stay or Should I Go" by The Clash.
She briefly returned to sketches for the 1992 Christmas Day special Victoria Wood's All Day Breakfast, and also branched out into children's animation, voicing all the characters for the CBBC series Puppydog Tales.
In April 1993, Wood began a seven-month tour of the UK. The 104-date tour broke box office records, including 15 sell out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall, and played to residencies in Sheffield, Birmingham, Plymouth, Bristol, Nottingham, Manchester, Leicester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Oxford, Southampton, Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds and Hull.
The television film Pat and Margaret (1994), starring Wood and Julie Walters as long-lost sisters with very different lifestyles, continued her return to stand-alone plays with a poignant undercurrent to the comedy.
In 1994, Wood starred in the one-off BBC 50-minute programme based on her 1993/94 stage show Victoria Wood: Live in Your Own Home. The special featured stand-up routines, character monologues and songs. An extended 80 minute version was released on VHS.
Wood set out on a 68-date tour of the UK in May 1996, which played at venues in Leicester, Sheffield, Ipswich, Blackpool, Wolverhampton, Bradford, Newcastle, Bournemouth, Brighton, Nottingham, Oxford, Southend, Manchester and Cambridge. The tour culminated with another 15 sell-out shows at London's Royal Albert Hall in the autumn. The tour recommenced in April 1997 in Liverpool and then travelled to Australia and New Zealand during the summer. It was later released as Victoria Wood Live 1997.
In October 1997, Wood released a compilation of 14 of her songs titled Victoria Wood, Real Life The Songs.
Her first sitcom dinnerladies (1998), continued her now established milieu of mostly female, mostly middle-aged characters depicted vividly and amusingly, but with a counterpoint of sadder themes.
2000–2005
December 2000 saw the Christmas sketch show special Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings, featuring her regular troupe of actors as well as a string of special guest stars including Hugh Laurie, Angela Rippon, Bob Monkhouse, Bill Paterson, Delia Smith and Roger Moore.
2001 saw Wood embark on her final stand-up tour, Victoria Wood at It Again but was postponed slightly by Wood having to have an emergency hysterectomy shortly before the tour was due to begin. She re-wrote the entire first half of the show and incorporated the operation into her act. The 62-date tour included 12 nights at the Royal Albert Hall and had a further 23 dates in 2002.
During this period, Wood tended to move away from comedy to concentrate on drama. She continued to produce one-off specials including Victoria Wood's Sketch Show Story (2002) and Victoria Wood's Big Fat Documentary (2005).
Wood wrote her first musical, Acorn Antiques: The Musical!, which opened in 2005 at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, London, for a limited period, directed by Trevor Nunn. It starred several of the original cast, with Sally Ann Triplett playing Miss Berta (played in the series by Wood). Wood played Julie Walters' lead role of Mrs Overall for Monday and Wednesday matinee performances.
2006–2010
Wood wrote the one-off ITV serious drama Housewife, 49 (2006), an adaptation of the diaries of Nella Last, and played the eponymous role of an introverted middle-aged character who discovers new confidence and friendships in Lancashire during the Second World War. Housewife, 49 was critically acclaimed, and Wood won BAFTAs for both her acting and writing for this drama; a rare double. The film also starred Stephanie Cole and David Threlfall as well as, in a small role, Sue Wallace with whom Wood had worked before and studied alongside at Birmingham.
In November 2006, Wood directed a revival production of Acorn Antiques: The Musical! with a new cast. The musical opened at the Lowry in Salford in December and toured the United Kingdom from January to July 2007.
In January 2007, she appeared as herself in a series of advertisements featuring famous people working for the supermarket chain Asda. They featured Wood working in the bakery and introduced a catchphrase – "there's no place like ASDA". Wood was the subject of an episode of The South Bank Show in March 2007, and is the only woman to be the subject of two South Bank programmes (the previous occasion was in September 1996).
Wood appeared in a three-part travel documentary on BBC One called Victoria's Empire, in which she travelled around the world in search of the history, cultural impact and customs the British Empire placed on the parts of the world it ruled. She departed Victoria Station, London, for Calcutta, Hong Kong and Borneo in the first programme. In programme two she visited Ghana, Jamaica and Newfoundland and in the final programme, New Zealand, Australia and Zambia, finishing at the Victoria Falls.
In a tribute to Wood, the British television station UKTV Gold celebrated her work with a weekend marathon of programmes between 3 and 4 November 2007, featuring programmes such as Victoria Wood Live and Dinnerladies and Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV – its first screening on British television since 1995.
Wood returned to stand-up comedy, with a special performance for the celebratory show Happy Birthday BAFTA on 28 October 2007, alongside other household names. The programme was transmitted on ITV1 on Wednesday 7 November 2007. On Boxing Day 2007 she appeared as "Nana" in the Granada dramatisation of Noel Streatfeild's novel Ballet Shoes.
In December 2007, when a guest on the radio programme Desert Island Discs, Wood said she was about to make her first foray into film, writing a script described as a contemporary comedy about a middle-aged person. On Thursday, 12 June 2008, Wood was a member of the celebrity guest panel on the series The Apprentice: You're Fired! on BBC Two. In June 2009, she appeared as a panellist on the first two episodes of a series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.
In 2009, Wood provided the voice of God for Liberace, Live From Heaven by Julian Woolford at London's Leicester Square Theatre. Wood returned to television comedy for a one-off Christmas sketch-show special, her first for nine years, Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas, transmitted on BBC One at 21:00 on Christmas Eve 2009. It reunited Wood with Julie Walters in Lark Pies to Cranchesterford, a spoof of BBC period dramas Lark Rise to Candleford, Little Dorrit and Cranford; a spoof documentary, Beyond the Marigolds, following Acorn Antiques star Bo Beaumont (Walters); highlights from the Mid Life Olympics 2009 with Wood as the commentator; parodies of personal injury advertisements; and a reprise of Wood's most famous song "The Ballad of Barry and Freda" ("Let's Do It"), performed as a musical number with tap-dancers and a band. Victoria Wood: Seen On TV, a 90-minute documentary looking back on her career, was broadcast on BBC Two on 21 December, whilst a behind-the-scenes special programme about Midlife Christmas, Victoria Wood: What Larks!, was broadcast on BBC One on 30 December.
2011–2016
On New Year's Day 2011, Wood appeared in a BBC drama Eric and Ernie as Eric Morecambe's mother, Sadie Bartholomew.
For the 2011 Manchester International Festival, Wood wrote, composed and directed That Day We Sang, a musical set in 1969 with flashbacks to 1929. It tells the story of a middle-aged couple who find love after meeting on a TV programme about a choir they both sang in 40 years previously. Although the characters are imaginary, the choir sang with the Hallé Youth Orchestra in Manchester's Free Trade Hall on a record that sold more than a million copies. Apart from the pieces on the 1929 recording (Purcell's "Nymphs and Shepherds" and the Evening Benediction from Hansel and Gretel) the score for the musical was written by Wood. She also narrated the 2012 miniseries The Talent Show Story.
On 22 December 2012, Wood was a guest on BBC Radio Two's Saturday morning Graham Norton Show. On 23 December BBC One screened Loving Miss Hatto, a drama written by Wood about the life of concert pianist Joyce Hatto, the centre of a scandal over the authenticity of her recordings and her role in the hoax. In April 2013, Wood produced a documentary about the history of tea named Victoria Wood's Nice Cup of Tea. In 2013 she played retired constable-turned-security-guard Tracy in BBC Scotland's Case Histories starring Jason Isaacs. She appeared in an episode of QI, broadcast on 13 December 2013, and around the same time made two return appearances on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue during the show's 60th series in which she joined in the game One song to the tune of Another, singing Bob the Builder to the tune of I Dreamed a Dream. In March 2014, Wood voiced the TV advertisement for the tour of the old set of Coronation Street. On 5 December 2014 Wood was a guest on BBC's The Graham Norton Show. On 26 December 2014, a television movie adaptation of That Day We Sang, directed by Wood, starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, was shown on BBC Two.
In early 2015, Wood took part in a celebrity version of The Great British Bake Off for Comic Relief and was crowned Star Baker in her episode. She co-starred with Timothy Spall in Sky television's three-part television adaptation of Fungus the Bogeyman, which was first shown on 27, 28 & 29 December 2015, her final acting role.
Awards and recognition
Wood received many awards in her career. She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Earlier in 1994, she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of Sunderland. She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.
In 2003, she was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 Funniest Acts in British Comedy. In the 2005 Channel 4 poll the Comedians' Comedian, she was voted 27th out of the top 50 comedy acts by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. She was the highest-ranked woman on the list, above French and Saunders (who paid tribute to her in their Lord of the Rings spoof, where a map of Middle-Earth shows a forest called 'Victoria Wood'), Joan Rivers and Joyce Grenfell.
Her sketch show Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won BAFTA awards for its two series and Christmas Special. In 2007, she was nominated for and won the BAFTA awards for "Best Actress" and for "Best Single Drama" for her role in the British war-time drama Housewife, 49, in which she played the part of a housewife dominated by her moody husband. Wood's character eventually stands up to him and helps the WRVS (Women's Royal Voluntary Service) in their preparations for British soldiers.
Her popularity with the British public was confirmed when she won 'Best Stand-Up' and 'Best Sketch Show' by Radio Times readers in 2001. Wood was also voted 'Funniest Comedian' by the readers of Reader's Digest in 2005 and came eighth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, four places behind long term regular co-star Julie Walters.
Wood was the recipient of six British Comedy Awards: Best stand-up live comedy performer (1990); Best female comedy performer (1995); WGGB Writer of the year (2000); Best live stand-up (2001); Outstanding achievement award (jointly awarded to Julie Walters) (2005); Best female TV comic (2011). Wood was nominated for the 1991 Olivier Award for Best Entertainment for Victoria Wood Up West.
BAFTA nominations
Wood was a 14-time BAFTA TV Award nominee, winning four. She received a special BAFTA at a tribute evening in 2005.
Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1986, 1987 and 1988; these awards went to the producer, Geoff Posner.
An Audience With Victoria Wood won the BAFTA for Best Entertainment Programme in 1989; this award went to David G. Hillier.
Personal life
Wood married stage magician Geoffrey Durham in March 1980 and they had two children: Grace, born 1 October 1988 and Henry, born 2 May 1992. The couple separated in October 2002 and divorced in 2005, but continued to live near one another and were on good terms. Her son Henry made a cameo performance as a teenager in Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas. He also appeared in the accompanying 'behind the scenes' programme Victoria Wood: What Larks!. Both children had already made appearances as extras on Victoria Wood with All the Trimmings in 2000.
Wood attended Quaker meetings with her husband and was a vegetarian, once remarking, "I'm all for killing animals and turning them into handbags; I just don't want to have to eat them."
Death
Wood was diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus in late 2015, but kept her illness largely private. She died on 20 April 2016 at her Highgate home, in the presence of her children and former husband.
Her family celebrated her life with a humanist funeral and cremation at Golders Green Crematorium on 5 May 2016.
A memorial service was held for Wood on 4 July 2016 at St James, Piccadilly. The event was accessible via invitation only and tributes were given by Jane Wymark, Daniel Rigby, Harriet Thorpe and Julie Walters. Ria Jones and Michael Ball each performed one of Wood's songs and Nigel Lilley accompanied on the piano.
Tributes
On 15 May 2016, ITV broadcast Let's Do It: A Tribute to Victoria Wood.
In 2017, Wood was the subject of a seven-part show dedicated mainly to extracts from her TV and live work. The main series, titled Our Friend Victoria, aired on BBC One between 11 April and 9 May and concluded later in the year with a Christmas special on 23 December 2017. The seven episodes were presented by Julie Walters, Richard E. Grant, Michael Ball, Maxine Peake, The League of Gentlemen, Daniel Rigby and Anne Reid.
On 17 May 2019, a statue of Wood was unveiled in her home town of Bury in Greater Manchester.
Biography
Christopher Foote Wood. Victoria Wood Comedy Genius - Her Life and Work, Published by The Memoir Club, 07552086888,
Christopher Foote Wood. Nellie's book : the early life of Victoria Wood's mother, with Nellie Wood (co-author), The History Press (2006),
References
External links
Profile at Caroline's Comedy Base
Victoria Wood at TV Museum
Victoria Wood at BBC Comedy Guide
Return to drama (Manchester Evening News)
BBC Writers Room – Video and text interview with Victoria Wood about writing comedy
The Independent – The 5-Minute Interview: Victoria Wood, comedian and writer
Victoria Wood Obituary BBC News Retrieved 20 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Guardian, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood obituary, The Daily Telegraph, retrieved 21 April 2016
Victoria Wood(Aveleyman)
1953 births
2016 deaths
20th-century English comedians
21st-century English comedians
20th-century English actresses
21st-century English actresses
Actresses from Lancashire
Alumni of the University of Birmingham
Best Actress BAFTA Award (television) winners
Best Entertainment Performance BAFTA Award (television) winners
Deaths from cancer in England
Comedians from Lancashire
Commanders of the Order of the British Empire
English humanists
English Quakers
English stand-up comedians
English television actresses
English television writers
English women comedians
English women pianists
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy of Music
People educated at Bury Grammar School (Girls)
People from Prestwich
People from Bury, Greater Manchester
Women television writers
Writers from Lancashire | false | [
"Stella Grigorian (; born 1968) is a Georgian operatic mezzo-soprano who trained at the music academy in Tbilisi. On completing her studies at the Vienna Conservatory, she made her début at the Vienna State Opera in 1998. She has performed in many leading roles, mainly in Austria and Germany but also in France, Switzerland and Denmark. In 2008, she released the album I'm suddently Spanish!\n\nBiography\nBorn in 1968 in Tbilisi, Stella Grigorian she studied voice at the Tbilisi State Conservatoire and at the Vienna Conservatory. Engaged as a soloist by the Vienna State Opera, she made her début in 1998 and performed with the company until 2006. Her repertoire has included Rosina in The Barber of Seville, Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Despina in Così fan tutte, Bersi in Andrea Chénier, Meg in Falstaff, Pieretto in Linda di Chamounix and Stephano in Roméo et Juliette. One of her most popular roles has been the title role in Carmen which she has performed in Vienna, Hamburg, Savonlinna, Catania and Copenhagen.\n\nEngaged by the Frankfurt Opera (2006–2010), her roles included Nerone in Agrippina, Polina in Pique Dame, Medea in Giasone, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Fenena in Nabucco and Giulietta in The Tales of Hoffmann. She has also performed a variety of operatic roles in Tel Aviv, Toulon, Zagreb, Florence, Tokyo and Istanbul. \n\nMore recently (January 2020), she has performed at the Bangkok Opera, taking two roles in Somtow Sucharitkul's Helena Citrónová.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1968 births\nLiving people\nMusicians from Tbilisi\n21st-century women opera singers from Georgia (country)\nOperatic mezzo-sopranos\nUniversity of Music and Performing Arts Vienna alumni\n20th-century women opera singers from Georgia (country)",
"Tamanna Begum (1944 – 20 February 2012) was a Pakistani film and television actress.\n\nEarly life and career\nActress Tamanna was born in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India.\nTamanna started her media career from Radio Pakistan, Lahore in 1960 as a presenter and later performed in theater plays before joining films.\nShe ventured into films in 1962 with the film Daaman (film) and continued working in the Pakistani film industry until the late 1980s. She had performed in over 260 films and in hundreds of TV drama serials. She often appeared in negative roles but also performed some entertaining and comedy roles also.\n\nFilmography\nTamanna did a total of 263 films. \n\nSome of her popular films are:\nDaaman (1963 film) - Her debut film as an actress \n Ashiana (1964 film) \n Naseeb Apna Apna\nAfshan (1971)\nIlzaam (1972)\nNadaan (1971)\nMuhabbat (1972 film)\nUmrao Jaan Ada (1972 film)\nAnmol (1973 film)\nBharosa (1977)\nBehen Bhai(1979)\nSohra Te Jawai (1980)\nMehndi (1996 film)\n\nAfter over a decade of a career in films, she joined television and appeared in many character roles in Pakistani TV drama serials.\n\nAwards and recognition\n Nigar Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1977 for film Bharosa (1977).\n\nDeath\nTamanna Begum died after a protracted illness in Karachi on 20 February 2012 at the age of 68. She had suffered a heart attack some time ago and was under treatment in a private hospital. The heart attack had led to kidneys' failure and she used to have dialysis treatment twice a week. She could not fully recover, though, and finally died.\n\nAmong the survivors are a daughter, son-in-law and many grandchildren.\n\nReferences\n\nPakistani film actresses\n2012 deaths\n1944 births\nPakistani radio presenters\nPakistani television actresses\nPakistani stage actresses\nActresses from Karachi\nRadio personalities from Karachi\n20th-century Pakistani actresses\nWomen radio presenters"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses | 1 | Did Duff McKagan play for Guns N' Roses? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
American columnists
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
American rock drummers
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
Jane's Addiction members
Living people
Loaded (band) members
Musicians from Seattle
Seattle University alumni
Singer-songwriters from Washington (state)
Sportswriters from California
Sportswriters from Washington (state)
Velvet Revolver members
Writers from Los Angeles
Writers from Seattle
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Guitarists from Washington (state)
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
21st-century American drummers
20th-century American guitarists
American male non-fiction writers
Neurotic Outsiders members
Hollywood Vampires (band) members
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"\"So Fine\" is a song by the American rock band Guns N' Roses, released as a promotional single in 1992. It features bassist Duff McKagan on lead vocals, with Axl Rose singing the intro song's verses. The song, written entirely by McKagan, is a tribute to Johnny Thunders.\n\nMcKagan regularly sang the song during the Use Your Illusion Tour. The song was rehearsed during a soundcheck while Duff was guesting with Guns N' Roses during their Appetite for Democracy 2014 tour, but wasn't played live. The song made a reappearance after a 27 year absence during the Guns N' Roses 2020 Tour.\n\nReception\nSpin complimented McKagan's vocals when reviewing the song, comparing it to Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie.\n\nPersonnel\nGuns N' Roses\nW. Axl Rose – co-lead vocals\nSlash – lead guitar\nIzzy Stradlin – rhythm guitar\nDuff McKagan – bass, lead vocals\nMatt Sorum – drums, backing vocals\n\nAdditional musicians\nHoward Teman – piano\n\nReferences\n\nGuns N' Roses songs\nSongs written by Duff McKagan\n1991 songs",
"Road Crew was an American garage band from Los Angeles, California, formed in late 1983. The band consisted of future Guns N' Roses members Slash, Steven Adler and Duff McKagan. They auditioned a number of singers while writing material. However they disbanded the same year with no releases.\n\nFollowing his firing from Guns N' Roses in 1990, Adler joined Vain in 1991, with the band renaming themselves Road Crew the same year. The new lineup consisted of former members of California glam rockers Vain: Davy Vain, Ashley Mitchell, Jamie Scott, and Shawn Rorie. They recorded an album and gained some label attention. However, due to Adler's drug abuse, Road Crew disbanded once more without releasing the album.\n\nHistory\n\nEarly years, formation and disbanding (1984)\nFollowing the breakup of his previous group Tidus Sloan, Slash found himself without a band. His childhood friend Steven Adler, who had learned to play drums suggested that they form a band together. After trying out for London they decided to form their own band, taking out an ad in The Recycler for a bass player before auditioning for singers. Though they received a few calls, only Duff McKagan wanted to meet with them.\n\nMcKagan had moved from Seattle to Los Angeles at this point having already been a member of the bands The Fartz, Fastbacks and 10 Minute Warning while he also played one show drumming for Johnny Thunders. Shortly after his move, he answered the ad and met with Slash and Adler at Canter's Deli. Describing McKagan's appearance upon meeting him at Canter's, Slash said that he was \"this bone-skinny six-foot-plus guy, with short spiked blonde hair [who] rolled in wearing a Sid Vicious-style chain and padlock around his neck, combat boots, and a red-and-black leather trench coat in spite of the seventy-five-degree weather. No one had predicted that.\" Soon after meeting, the trio formed a group together, named Road Crew (after the Motörhead song \"(We Are) The Road Crew\") and began auditioning singers.\n\nThey auditioned a number of singers, including Ron Reyes who was briefly the singer for Black Flag, while working on material which included the main riff to what would become \"Rocket Queen\" (though Adler stated in a later interview stated that no Road Crew material was used until the recording of the Use Your Illusion albums). Despite there being a good chemistry between the trio, Slash disbanded the group citing not being able to find a singer as well as Adler's constant partying and lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.\n\nSlash would go on to play with Black Sheep and audition for Poison, while both Slash and Adler became members of Hollywood Rose. Hollywood Rose would break-up and reform (without Slash and Adler) eventually becoming Guns N' Roses. Slash, McKagan and Adler would replace Guns N' Roses members Tracii Guns, Ole Beich and Rob Gardner respectively. Along with Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin, the lineup would be known as the \"classic lineup\" of Guns N' Roses.\n\nSecond incarnation (1991)\nAfter being fired from Guns N' Roses in 1990, Adler would join the heavy metal group Vain. The band, who had by then recorded two albums, and whose lineup consisted at that time of singer Davy Vain, guitarists Jamie Scott and bassist Ashley Mitchell, as well as guitarist Shawn Rorie who had joined after the second album was completed, renamed themselves Road Crew and proceeded to record an album. However, despite gaining attention from a record label, the group disbanded due to Adler's drug problems at the time.\n\nFollowing the breakup, Adler briefly joined BulletBoys, before forming the group Suki Jones, which eventually became Adler's Appetite, performing on and off with the band since 2003. Following the breakup of Adler's Appetite, he formed the eponymous group Adler in 2011. On April 14, 2012, Slash, McKagan and Adler were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as members of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses. They headlined the induction ceremony with fellow inductee Matt Sorum, as well as former member Gilby Clarke and Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy.\n\nMembers\n\nFirst incarnation\nSteven Adler – drums (1984)\nSlash – guitar (1984)\nDuff McKagan – bass (1984)\n\nSecond incarnation\nSteven Adler – drums (1991)\nDavy Vain – vocals (1991)\nAshley Mitchell – bass (1991)\nJamie Scott – guitar (1991)\nShawn Rorie – guitar (1991)\n\nReferences\n\nGuns N' Roses\nMusical groups established in 1984\nMusical groups disestablished in 1984\nMusical groups disestablished in 1991\nMusical groups reestablished in 1991"
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"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | What year did he start with the band? | 2 | What year did Duff McKagan start with Guns N' Roses? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | In April 1985, | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
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21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | false | [
"Ghosts is the second studio album, and the first and only on a major label, by the alternative rock band Sleeping at Last. It was released on October 7, 2003, on Interscope Records. The band had some success with the single \"Say\".\n\nBackground and recording\nThe band initially received major record label attention after providing the Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan a copy of their self-released first album, Capture, in March 2001. While not credited as a producer, he did help the band shape the album:\n\"We've had so many conversations with [Corgan]. He never interfered with what we wanted to do, but he'd tell us what he thought was really strong. He'd say, 'That's a great direction. You can tap into more of that, if you want.' He taught us a lot about song arrangement. And he always said he really believes in what we're doing.\"\n\nFrontman Ryan O'Neal spent the following two years writing the album, including writing out the lyrics on an old typewriter, without composing any of the music in mind during the sessions. With all of the lyrics written, he then began working on applying the lyrics to musical compositions; some went effortlessly, while others took extensive reworking. Corgan, impressed with the work, helped them secure a record deal with Interscope Records in late 2002. The band cancelled plans to record an EP in order to focus efforts on their first major record label album. The band had planned to start the recording sessions in 2002 and to release the album in early 2003, but the recording sessions did not start until the beginning of 2003 and it took six months to complete. The band recorded in music producer Steve Albini's Electrical Audio studio, and according to the studio's recommendation, worked with Susan Voelz on the album's orchestral arrangements, as the band generally knew the sounds they wanted to make, but did not necessarily have the means to convey it on paper. Corgan also helped to put them in contact with a number of people in the music industry who he had previously worked with, including the producer Bjorn Thorsrud, with whom Corgan had recently collaborated on his Adore and Machina/The Machines of God albums with the Smashing Pumpkins, and with the mixer Alan Moulder, who had also worked on the Machina sessions.\n\nPromotion and release\nThe album was released on October 7, 2003. The band found some success with their single \"Say\". The song was featured prominently on Fuse TV's \"Oven Fresh\" countdown, appearing at the top of the chart. The band also performed the single live on Fuse's IMX program. The band toured extensively in support of the album, doing a national tour with Switchfoot and also touring with Corgan's other band at the time, Zwan. The album's title track was used in the Warner Brothers television show version of Tarzan.\n\nReception and aftermath\n\nThe album was generally well received by critics. AllMusic favorably compared the album to the work of Radiohead and U2, stating, \" Ghosts could have easily become yet another album bleeding emo-inflected tears for the torturous souls of its creators. Instead, it's a life-size star map flecked with glimmering jewels of melody and the wondering promise of youth.\" Melodic praised the album's \"huge\" and \"dream-like\" sound. Hip Online was less positive about the album, stating that, overall, the album represented a failed attempt to create a Radiohead, U2, Goo Goo Dolls or Britpop album.\n\nThe band chose to leave Interscope before independently releasing their follow up album, Keep No Score. The split was amicable, with Ryan O'Neal saying that working with the label had overall been a positive experience, but the band was so hands-on with the process that they felt they could do just as well independently.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\n\nSleeping at Last\nRyan O'Neal – vocals, guitar, keyboards, string arrangements\nDan Perdue – bass guitar, keyboards\nChad O'Neal – drums, percussion\n\nAdditional musicians\nSusan Voelz – violin\nAlison Chesley – cello\nInger Carle – violin\nVannia Phillips – viola\n\nProduction\nSleeping at Last – arranger, producer\nBjorn Thorsrud – producer, engineer\nAlan Moulder - mixing\nTed Jensen – mastering\nAndy Saunders – engineer\nGreg Norman – engineer\n\"Rusty\" Arbuthnot – engineer\nAzuolas Sinkevicius – digital editing, Pro-Tools\nDan Perdue – arranger, string arrangements\nSusan Voelz –orchestration, string arrangements, string coordinator\nPaul McMenamin – art direction\n\nReferences\n\nSleeping at Last albums\n2003 albums",
"Billy Brimblecom, Jr. is a drummer from Kansas City, Missouri.\n\nPersonal life\nBilly Brimblecom is the Executive Director of Steps of Faith Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to providing prosthetic care, hope, and comfort to amputees needing financial support.\n\nMusic career\nBrimblecom began playing the drums at age 11. In 1995 at the age of 18, Brimblecom joined the Lawrence, Kansas-based heavy rock band Stick who released 2 albums. Their first album, 1993's Heavy Bag was released by Arista records.\n\nThe Creature Comforts\nIn 1997, Brimblecom formed the rootsy, power-pop band, The Creature Comforts with songwriter Christopher Tolle. Brimblecom began frequent tours of America and The Creature Comforts released 2 full-length albums. The Creature Comforts reunited in June 2009 after a 7-year break to play one show in Kansas City before Billy moved to Nashville, TN.\n\nThe Start\nIn 2003, Brimblecom joined the Los Angeles-based dark, new wave pop band The START. The START did extensive tours of America as well as supporting The Offspring in the U.S. and U.K. He recorded The START's 2004 Nitro Records release \"Initiation\".\n\nBlackpool Lights\nIn the fall of 2004, Brimblecom teamed up with Jim Suptic of The Get Up Kids to form Blackpool Lights. Brimblecom recorded Blackpool Lights' 2006 Curb Appeal Records release \"This Town's Disaster\" . In early 2005 Brimblecom learned he a form of cancer in his leg called Ewing's sarcoma. This resulted in his left leg being amputated above the knee. After 13 rounds of chemotherapy and a few months of rehab, Brimblecom re-joined Blackpool Lights and began touring (on the drums with a prosthetic leg) in March 2006. Brimblecom and the band did extensive tours of the U.S., Canada and Japan as well as support slots for Social Distortion, Anberlin, Angels and Airwaves.\n\nBrimblecom parted ways with Blackpool Lights in 2007. He has since been doing session work with producer/songwriter Don Chaffer (of Waterdeep). He has had write ups in Modern Drummer and Relevant Magazine as well as Kansas City's The Pitch.\n\nNashville\nIn July 2009, Billy and his wife relocated to Nashville, TN. to pursue more studio and road work. Billy has continued to work with Don Chaffer, recording new material with his band Waterdeep. He has also been doing session work and production with friend and bandmate (from The Khrusty Brothers and The Klangs), Greg LaFollette.\n\nDiscography\n\nWith The Creature Comforts\nPolitics of Pop - (1998)\nTeaching Little Fingers to Play - (2000)\n\nWith Blackpool Lights\nBlackpool Lights - (2005)\nThis Town's Disaster - (2006)\n\nReferences\n\n1977 births\nLiving people\nMusicians from Kansas City, Missouri\n20th-century American drummers\nAmerican male drummers\n21st-century American drummers\n20th-century American male musicians\n21st-century American male musicians"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Did he have to tryout? | 3 | Did Duff McKagan have to tryout for Guns N' Roses? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
American columnists
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
American rock drummers
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
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Living people
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Musicians from Seattle
Seattle University alumni
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Sportswriters from Washington (state)
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Writers from Los Angeles
Writers from Seattle
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Guitarists from Washington (state)
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21st-century American drummers
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Singer-songwriters from California | false | [
"Robert Earl Taylor (born November 14, 1960) is a former NFL offensive tackle who played eight seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He was selected by the Philadelphia Eagles in the twelfth round of the 1982 NFL Draft.\n\nTaylor signed with the Buccaneers in 1986 after coming to Tampa on a vacation with his wife. He went to the team facility to ask for a tryout which was granted, and was signed from the tryout.\n\nReferences\n\n1960 births\nLiving people\nPeople from St. Charles, Illinois\nSportspeople from Kane County, Illinois\nAmerican football offensive tackles\nNorthwestern Wildcats football players\nTampa Bay Buccaneers players\nChicago Blitz players",
"Scott Campbell (born June 6, 1986) is a Canadian professional ice hockey winger. He is currently playing with SønderjyskE Ishockey of the Danish Metal Ligaen.\n\nPlaying career\n\nCampbell played 3 seasons of junior hockey for the Pembroke Lumber Kings of the Central Canada Hockey League playing 130 games scoring 74 goals and 96 assists for 170 points and a 1.31 points per game average.\n\nStarting in the 2007–08 season Campbell began attending the University of Massachusetts Lowell and playing for the River Hawks. In 4 seasons of college hockey at UMass Lowell he played 126 games, scored 39 goals and 46 assists for 85 points and was named to the 2009–10 and 2010–11 Hockey East All-Academic Teams.\n\nFollowing his final season with UMass Lowell Campbell signed a professional tryout contract with the Houston Aeros and played 6 games without scoring a point.\n\nThe 2011–12 season saw Campbell sign with the Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL where he played 51 regular season games, scoring 31 points. In the playoffs, he played 18 games scoring 10 points helping the Wranglers to the Western Conference championship, coming up 3 games short of a Kelly Cup Championship. On December 21, 2011 the Rochester Americans signed Campbell to a professional tryout contract, he played 1 game for the Americans before being released to return to the Wranglers. Campbell also signed a tryout contract with the Texas Stars of the AHL on February 18, 2012 where he played 12 games scoring no points, before being returned again to the Wranglers.\n\nCampbell signed an extension with the Wranglers on August 14, 2012 to play in Las Vegas for the 2012–13 ECHL season, however he was signed to a tryout contract by the Bridgeport Sound Tigers on December 18, 2012. Campbell was successful in his tryout and signed a standard player contract with the team on February 13, 2013.\n\nThe Boston Bruins invited Campbell to their 2013–14 training camp but he was among the first round of cuts on September 18, 2013 and was reassigned to the Providence Bruins of the AHL. Campbell attended the Providence training camp however he was assigned to their ECHL affiliate the South Carolina Stingrays. After 21 games with the Stingrays he was recalled to the Providence Bruins on December 10, 2013.\n\nOn September 13, 2014, Campbell as a free agent signed his first contract abroad, agreeing to a one-year contract with Italian club, HC Valpellice of the Serie A.\n\nAfter one season in Italy Campbell signed a one-year contract with SønderjyskE Ishockey of the Metal Ligaen.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nAwards and honors\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1986 births\nLiving people\nBridgeport Sound Tigers players\nCanadian ice hockey left wingers\nHouston Aeros (1994–2013) players\nLas Vegas Wranglers players\nProvidence Bruins players\nRochester Americans players\nSouth Carolina Stingrays players\nTexas Stars players\nUMass Lowell River Hawks men's ice hockey players\nIce hockey people from Ontario\nSportspeople from Ottawa"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose."
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Did he enjoy success with the band? | 4 | Did Duff McKagan enjoy success with Guns N' Roses? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
American columnists
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
American rock drummers
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
Jane's Addiction members
Living people
Loaded (band) members
Musicians from Seattle
Seattle University alumni
Singer-songwriters from Washington (state)
Sportswriters from California
Sportswriters from Washington (state)
Velvet Revolver members
Writers from Los Angeles
Writers from Seattle
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Guitarists from Washington (state)
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
21st-century American drummers
20th-century American guitarists
American male non-fiction writers
Neurotic Outsiders members
Hollywood Vampires (band) members
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Everloving Records was founded in 2003, having been Enjoy Records from 2000. With the success of Jack Johnson's debut Brushfire Fairytales the original, though defunct, Enjoy Records phoned up to reclaim their moniker. Everloving began with Jack's album, which was produced by co-founder J. P. Plunier. The company began when A&R veteran Andy Factor and Plunier partnered, after having worked together for Ben Harper. Plunier is Harper's manager and Factor was his A&R man.\n\nShortly after \"Brushfire Fairytales\", Everloving had a hit with Mad World from the film Donnie Darko. That was composed by Tears for Fears and arranged by Michael Andrews and featured the vocals of Gary Jules. It went #1 in the UK at Christmas 2003, two years after the film had come out.\n\nAdditional forays into film brought the soundtrack to \"Dogtown and Z-Boys\" and the score to \"Me and You and Everyone We Know\"\n\nCanadian band Metric debuted on Everloving, as did Lowell George's daughter Inara George. Both were produced by Michael Andrews.\n\nEverloving's most recent success has been with Costa Mesa psychedelic/surf rock band The Growlers. The Growlers have released five studio albums: Are You In Or Out? (2009), Hot Tropics EP (2010), Hung at Heart (2013), Gilded Pleasures EP (2013), and Chinese Fountain (2014).\n\nEverloving also has management and consulting divisions.\n\nSee also\n List of record labels\n\nExternal links\nEverloving Records\n\nAmerican record labels\nRecord labels established in 2003\nAlternative rock record labels\n2003 establishments in the United States",
"Anthony Earle Peter Butler (born 13 February 1957) is a British bassist, best known for his work with Scottish rock band Big Country. He has also worked with On the Air, The Pretenders, Roger Daltrey, and Pete Townshend, among others.\n\nEarly life\nButler was born at Hammersmith Hospital in White City, London, England. His parents are of Dominican heritage.\n\nCareer\nIn the late 1970s Butler joined the short-lived band On the Air which also included drummer Mark Brzezicki and Simon Townshend (the younger brother of The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend). On the Air released two singles in 1980 and toured with the Scottish band The Skids, which was where Butler met Stuart Adamson. In 1982 Butler joined Adamson's new band Big Country with his drumming partner Mark Brzezicki, which went on to enjoy success internationally during the 1980s and 1990s, he remained in the band until the end of 2000.\n\nHe also did session work with other artists including Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and The Pretenders among others, and declined an invitation by Chrissie Hynde to join The Pretenders.\n\nIn 2007, to celebrate 25 years of Big Country, Butler reunited with founder members Bruce Watson and Mark Brzezicki to embark on a tour of the UK. He became lead vocalist for the first time, taking over from the deceased Stuart Adamson. The band toured during 2010–11 with Mike Peters of The Alarm on vocals. Butler left Big Country again in 2012, citing differences with his bandmates, to be replaced by former Simple Minds bassist Derek Forbes.\n\nButler moved to Cornwall with his family in the 1980s and became a further education teacher in the 2000s. As of 2017, Butler ran courses in music at Petroc College in Devon.\n\nWhile Butler did not join The Pretenders permanently, he did a couple of sessions with the Pretenders out of which came the 1982 singles \"My City Was Gone\" and \"Back on the Chain Gang.\"\n\nIn 2017/18 Butler released an autobiography and a solo album My Time.\n\nDiscography\n\nSolo albums\nTony Butler has released three solo albums:\nThe Great Unknown (1997)\nLife Goes On (2005)\nMy Time (2018)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\nPretenders 977 Radio\n\nLiving people\n1957 births\nBig Country members\nBlack British rock musicians\nEnglish people of Dominica descent\nEnglish rock bass guitarists\nMale bass guitarists\nMusicians from London\nPeople from Shepherd's Bush\nThe Pretenders members"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | What country did the band have its most success? | 5 | What country did Guns N' Roses have the most success? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
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21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"\"What About Love\" is a song by American country rock band The Desert Rose Band, which was released in 1993 as the lead single from their fifth and final studio album Life Goes On. The song was written by Chris Hillman and Steve Hill, and produced by Paul Worley and Ed Seay. \"What About Love\" peaked at No. 71 on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nRelease \n\"What About Love\" was released by Curb Records as a promotional CD single in the United States only. Prior to the single's release on 26 July 1993, a \"mystery teaser\" campaign was launched by Curb with the intention of generating interest for the track on country radio. The label sent the single to all reporting radio stations across the United States, but withheld all identification of the band. The single was instead presented in a black box with the gold-embossed text, \"The Magic and Mystery of Music\". Programmers were asked to identify the artist, write their answers on a contest entry form and send the form to an anonymous P.O. box for the chance of winning a trip to the Bahamas. The competition received entries from over 200 stations, which in turn created early interest in the single.\n\nIn the Gavin Report of July 30, 1993, \"What About Love\" was listed as the third most added song on country radio, with 69 adds. It received a further 17 adds the following week and another six the week after. In the Gavin Report of August 20, the song was listed as having been dropped by radio. \"What About Love\" reached No. 71 on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart in September 1993. It was both the band's lowest and final charting single. Although Life Goes On was due to be released in the US on 23 September 1993, Curb subsequently only released the album in Europe.\n\nIn an interview with The Sacramento Bee in 1993, Herb Pederson spoke of the single's lack of chart success, \"'What About Love' did real well, but there was no room for it to move up. The top 10 just did not move out of the way. There was a total roadblock. We were calling radio guys all over the country. They loved the song, [but] said they had no room for it right now on their playlists. It's a shame because we are really fond of the song and think it could have been a major hit.\"\n\nMusic video \nThe song's music video was directed by Michael Merriman. It was shot in a courtyard in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The video was the only one to be created for a song on the Life Goes On album, where it became the band's final music video. The video achieved medium rotation on both Country Music Television and the Nashville Network. For the week ending August 1, 1993, the video reached No. 50 on the Country Music Television chart which listed the network's most-played clips. Jim Bessman, writing for Billboard, noting the video contained \"spiritual overtones emphasizing the song's theme\" and added, \"The clip suggests the West Coast country sound that Desert Rose has always epitomized.\"\n\nCritical reception \nOn its release, Larry Flick of Billboard wrote, \"Love is an obstacle course here, but the picking and singing are smooth as silk.\" Lisa Smith of the Gavin Report commented, \"The Desert Rose Band are back, with a new lineup but the same great sound. Chris Hillman, who wrote this song with frequent collaborator Steve Hill, gives 'What About Love' an intriguing, darkly optimistic tone.\" In a review of Life Goes On, Jim Washburn of the Los Angeles Times described \"What About Love\" as a \"finely country number in the traditional Desert Rose Band mould\".\n\nTrack listing \nCD single\n\"What About Love\" - 3:18\n\nPersonnel \nThe Desert Rose Band\n Chris Hillman – lead vocals, guitar, mandolin\n Herb Pedersen – guitar, banjo, dobro, vocals\n Bill Bryson – bass, vocals\n Tom Brumley – pedal steel guitar\n Jeff Ross – guitar\n Tim Grogan – drums, percussion, vocals\n\nProduction\n Paul Worley – production\n Ed Seay – production\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1993 songs\n1993 singles\nThe Desert Rose Band songs\nCurb Records singles\nSongs written by Chris Hillman\nSong recordings produced by Paul Worley",
"Henry Wagons is an Australian singer/songwriter, musician, radio & TV personality and frontman of the outlaw country rock band, Wagons (band) who have released seven albums in Australia, and made their U.S. debut with 2011's Rumble, Shake and Tumble.\n\nBackground \nHenry Wagons is the grandson of Henry Krips, a Viennese emigree, principal conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. \n\nApart from his career as a recording artist, Henry is also a TV presenter and radio broadcaster. Henry Wagons was named by The Age Melbourne Magazine as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Melbourne in 2009.\n\nEarly bands \nIn the late 1990s, Wagons played as a keyboardist in a noise group called Dworzec, which was inspired by Krautrock and bands on New Zealand label Flying Nun. Wagons played as a bassist in the rock bands Breaking the Law and The Ancients.\n\nIn 1999, Wagons formed alt-country rock band Wagons (band), who have released seven albums in Australia between 2000 and 2014\n\nTV, radio and media interests \nWagons was a regular segment presenter/reporter on ABC TV’s Art Nation and Sunday Arts for three years, as well as having had a regular spot on adult-contemporary music program Dig TV, bursting into people’s houses at random and critiquing their record collections. He has made multiple TV appearances on music shows, RocKwiz and Spicks and Specks. In 2014, Henry hosted the episode \"RocKwiz Backstage at Bluesfest with Henry Wagons\".\n\nIn 2014 Henry hosted a BBQ cooking show Keepers Of The Flame on network television Channel 10, while also hosting interview series ‘Rogue Tales’ for James Squire.\n\nWagons is the host of Tower Of Song, a national Americana/roots radio show, broadcast weekly on digital radio station Double J.\n\nSolo career \nIn 2012 Wagons released his first solo offering Expecting Company; a mini album of duets featuring collaborations with Alison Mosshart (The Kills/Dead Weather), Robert Forster, Gossling, Patience Hodgson, Canada's Jenn Grant and others.\n\nOn 6 March 2013, Henry Wagons recorded Upstairs at United Vol. 9. Henry presents 7 songs including an Elvis cover and a Waylon Jennings cover. Upstairs At United is a series of all analog, direct to tape, live studio recordings, taped above the United Records Pressing Plant, Nashville.\n\nHis debut full-length solo album After What I Did Last Night... was released in February 2016 on ABC Music.\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n\nAwards and nominations\n\nAIR Awards\nThe Australian Independent Record Awards (commonly known informally as AIR Awards) is an annual awards night to recognise, promote and celebrate the success of Australia's Independent Music sector.\n\n|-\n| AIR Awards of 2017\n| After What I Did Last Night\n| Best Independent Country Album\n| \n|-\n\nNational Live Music Awards\nThe National Live Music Awards (NLMAs) are a broad recognition of Australia's diverse live industry, celebrating the success of the Australian live scene. The awards commenced in 2016.\n\n|-\n| 2017\n| Henry Wagons\n| Live Country or Folk Act of the Year\n| \n|-\n\nSee also\n Wagons (band)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\nAustralian alternative country singers\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which",
"What country did the band have its most success?",
"18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S."
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Did McKagan or GNR receive any awards for the album? | 6 | Did McKagan or Guns N' Roses receive any awards for Appetite for Destruction? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
American columnists
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
American rock drummers
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
Jane's Addiction members
Living people
Loaded (band) members
Musicians from Seattle
Seattle University alumni
Singer-songwriters from Washington (state)
Sportswriters from California
Sportswriters from Washington (state)
Velvet Revolver members
Writers from Los Angeles
Writers from Seattle
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Guitarists from Washington (state)
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
21st-century American drummers
20th-century American guitarists
American male non-fiction writers
Neurotic Outsiders members
Hollywood Vampires (band) members
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Goodnight Records is an independent record label and publishing company based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Founded in Atlanta in 2004 by Keith Voglesong and Nathan Jones, Goodnight Records has released records by bands from all over the country and has partnered with larger independent labels such as Merge Records to produce specialty co-releases for their artists.\n\nRoster\n Heliotropes\n The Press\n Askeleton\n Hi Ho Six Shooter\n The Close\n S.I.D.S.\n The Orphins\n The Rosebuds\n Music for People\n Adam Franklin and Bolts of Melody\n\nDiscography\n GNR001 - Askeleton Angry Album or Psychic Songs 2004 \n GNR002 - The Orphins Drowning Cupid 2004\n GNR003 - The Rosebuds/The Close Rosebuds/Close Split 7\" 2004\n GNR004 - Young Vulgarians Nepoleonic Melodrama 2005\n GNR006 - Music For People Audio Diary of the Typical Gemini 2005\n GNR007 - The Press Noxious Saucy Beast 2005 \n GNR008 - The Rosebuds Birds Make Good Neighbors 2005\n GNR009 - Askeleton (Happy) Album 2005 \n GNR010 - The Press Red Comes Ringin' 7\" 2006\n GNR011 - S.I.D.S. My Other Vehicle is a Stretcher 2006 \n GNR012 - The Close Sun, Burn 2006\n GNR013 - Hi Ho Six Shooter Empire 2008\n GNR014 - The Press Milk and the Times that Never Were 2008 \n GNR015 - The Rosebuds Night of the Furies 2007\n GNR016 - Askeleton The Personalization 2008\n GNR017 - The Press Master 7\" 2009 \n GNR034 - Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody Black Horses 2013\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Page\n\nAmerican independent record labels",
"Beautiful Disease is an unreleased solo album by Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan which was slated to be released in 1999. However, it was shelved after a merger between McKagan's parent label Polygram and Universal, and McKagan lost the rights to release it.\n\nOverview\nThe album was recorded through 1998 in Duff McKagan's home studio with all the instruments and vocals on the album provided by McKagan himself, with the addition of guests like Mike Bordin, Michael Barragan, Abe Laboriel Jr and ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash and Izzy Stradlin. Beautiful Disease included new versions of the songs \"Seattlehead\" and \"Mezz\" that were previously featured on releases of Duff McKagan's previous bands, Neurotic Outsiders and 10 Minute Warning respectively.\n\nThe album was supposed to be released on Duff McKagan's birthday February 5, 1999. The promotional campaign for the album was started by Geffen Records with promo copies being distributed. During the same time a merger between Polygram and Universal occurred and Geffen was merged with A&M Records into Interscope and McKagan's album was among others that was shelved.\n\nNevertheless, Duff McKagan went on tour in support of the album putting up a band with Dez Cadena of Black Flag, Taz Bentley of the Burden Brothers and Michael Barragan of Plexi.\n\nDuring the tour McKagan came up with the idea to release a live album that would include the unreleased material. This resulted in Loaded's Episode 1999: Live live album that featured six songs from Beautiful Disease: \"Seattlehead\", \"Superman\", \"Shinin' Down\", \"Missing You\", \"Then and Now\" and \"Mezz\".\n\nThe songs \"Seattlehead\", \"Superman\", and \"Then and Now\" were eventually re-recorded and released on Loaded's debut studio album Dark Days.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Duff McKagan, except where noted.\n\n\"Seattlehead\" - 4:17\n\"Who's to Blame\" - 2:06\n\"Superman\" - 3:12\n\"Song for Beverly\" - 4:33\n\"Put You Back\" (Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin) - 3:24\n\"Shinin' Down\" (Al Bloch) - 2:54\n\"Missing You\" (Duff McKagan, Michael Barragan) - 4:52\n\"Hope\" - 4:32\n\"Holiday\" (Al Bloch) - 2:22\n\"Then and Now\" (Duff McKagan, Paul Solger) - 4:10\n\"Rain\" - 4:17\n\"Beautiful Disease\" (Duff McKagan, Eddie Hewlett) - 2:43\n\"Mezz\" - 4:42\n\nPersonnel\n\nStudio personnel\nDuff McKagan - vocals, bass guitar, guitar, drums\n\nAdditional personnel\nSlash - lead guitar on \"Hope\" and \"Mezz\"\nIzzy Stradlin - rhythm guitar on \"Put You Back\"\nMike Bordin - drums\nMichael Barragan - rhythm guitar on \"Missing you\", \"Who's to Blame\" and \"Then and Now\", Moog Prodigy on \"Missing you\"\nNorm Block - drums on \"Missing you\", \"Who's to Blame\" and \"Then and Now\"\n\nReferences\n\nDuff McKagan albums\nUnreleased albums"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which",
"What country did the band have its most success?",
"18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S.",
"Did McKagan or GNR receive any awards for the album?",
"debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart,"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Did they go on tour? | 7 | Did Guns N' Roses go on tour? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
American columnists
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
American rock drummers
American rock guitarists
American male guitarists
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
Jane's Addiction members
Living people
Loaded (band) members
Musicians from Seattle
Seattle University alumni
Singer-songwriters from Washington (state)
Sportswriters from California
Sportswriters from Washington (state)
Velvet Revolver members
Writers from Los Angeles
Writers from Seattle
Guitarists from Los Angeles
Guitarists from Washington (state)
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
21st-century American drummers
20th-century American guitarists
American male non-fiction writers
Neurotic Outsiders members
Hollywood Vampires (band) members
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Andrew Butterfield (born 7 January 1972) is an English professional golfer who plays on the Challenge Tour.\n\nCareer\nButterfield was born in London, England. He turned professional in 1993 and joined the Challenge Tour in 1996. He played on the Challenge Tour until qualifying for the European Tour through Q-School in 1999. Butterfield did not perform well enough on tour in 2000 to retain his card and had to go back to the Challenge Tour in 2001. He got his European Tour card back through Q-School again in 2001 and played on the European Tour in 2002 but did not find any success on tour. He returned to the Challenge Tour and played there until 2005 when he finished 4th on the Challenge Tour's Order of Merit which earned him his European Tour card for 2006. He did not play well enough in 2006 to retain his tour card but was able to get temporary status on tour for 2007 by finishing 129th on the Order of Merit. He played on the European Tour and the Challenge Tour in 2007 and has played only on the Challenge Tour since 2008. He picked up his first win on the Challenge Tour in Sweden at The Princess in June 2009. He also won an event on the PGA EuroPro Tour in 2004.\n\nProfessional wins (2)\n\nChallenge Tour wins (1)\n\nChallenge Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nPGA EuroPro Tour wins (1)\n2004 Matchroom Golf Management International at Owston Hall\n\nPlayoff record\nEuropean Tour playoff record (0–1)\n\nResults in major championships\n\nNote: Butterfield only played in The Open Championship.\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\n\nSee also\n2005 Challenge Tour graduates\n2009 Challenge Tour graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nEnglish male golfers\nEuropean Tour golfers\nSportspeople from London\nPeople from the London Borough of Bromley\n1972 births\nLiving people",
"The Bob Dylan England Tour 1965 was a concert tour by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan during late April and early May 1965. The tour was widely documented by filmmaker D. A. Pennebaker, who used the footage of the tour in his documentary Dont Look Back.\n\nTour dates\n\nSet lists \nAs Dylan was still playing exclusively folk music live, much of the material performed during this tour was written pre-1965. Each show was divided into two halves, with seven songs performed during the first, and eight during the second. The set consisted of two songs from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, three from The Times They Are a-Changin', three from Another Side of Bob Dylan, a comic-relief concert staple; \"If You Gotta Go, Go Now\", issued as a single in Europe, and six songs off his then-recent album, Bringing It All Back Home, including the second side in its entirety.\n\n First half\n\"The Times They Are a-Changin'\"\n\"To Ramona\"\n\"Gates of Eden\"\n\"If You Gotta Go, Go Now (or Else You Got to Stay All Night)\"\n\"It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)\"\n\"Love Minus Zero/No Limit\"\n\"Mr. Tambourine Man\"\n\nSecond Half\n\"Talkin' World War III Blues\"\n\"Don't Think Twice, It's All Right\"\n\"With God on Our Side\"\n\"She Belongs to Me\"\n\"It Ain't Me Babe\"\n\"The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll\"\n\"All I Really Want to Do\"\n\"It's All Over Now, Baby Blue\"\n\nSet list per Olof Bjorner.\n\nAftermath \nJoan Baez accompanied him on the tour, but she was never invited to play with him in concert. In fact, they did not tour together again until 1975. After this tour, Dylan was hailed as a hero of folk music, but two months later, at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, he would alienate his fans and go electric. Dylan was the only artist apart from the Beatles to sell out the De Montfort Hall in the 1960s. Even the Rolling Stones did not sell out this venue.\n\nReferences \n\nHoward Sounes: Down the Highway. The Life of Bob Dylan.. 2001.\n\nExternal links \n Bjorner's Still on the Road 1965: Tour dates & set lists\n\nBob Dylan concert tours\n1965 concert tours\nConcert tours of the United Kingdom\n1965 in England"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which",
"What country did the band have its most success?",
"18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S.",
"Did McKagan or GNR receive any awards for the album?",
"debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart,",
"Did they go on tour?",
"In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour."
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | What is Believe in Me? | 8 | What is Duff McKagan's Believe in Me? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
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American male bass guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American multi-instrumentalists
American people of Irish descent
American rock bass guitarists
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American rock songwriters
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Jane's Addiction members
Living people
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Musicians from Seattle
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21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"\"Believe in Me\" is a single released by André Tanneberger (ATB) from his album Seven Years: 1998-2005.\n\nCD single track listings\n\nBelieve in Me (Germany Release) \n \"Believe in Me\" (Single Edit) 3:16 \n \"Believe in Me\" (Airplay Mix) 4:00\n \"Believe in Me\" (Clubb Mix) 8:01\n \"Believe in Me\" (A&T Remix) 7:23\n\nBelieve in Me (US Release)\n \"Believe in Me\" (Single Edit) 3:17 \n \"Believe in Me\" (Airplay Mix) 4:01\n \"Believe in Me\" (Clubb Mix) 8:00\n \"Believe in Me\" (A&T Remix) 7:24\n \"Believe in Me\" (DJ Antoine Main Mix) 6:58\n\nCharts\n\n2005 singles\nATB songs\nSongs written by André Tanneberger\n2005 songs",
"In acting, substitution is the understanding of elements in the life of one's character by comparing them to elements in one's own life. For example, if an actor is portraying a character who is being blackmailed, he or she could think back to some embarrassing or private fact about his or her own life, and mentally superimpose that onto the character's secret.\n\nIn Respect for Acting, Uta Hagen compares acting to make believe, saying, \"My strength as an actor rested in the unshakable faith I had in make-believe. I made myself believe the characters I was allowed to play and the circumstances of the characters' lives in the events of the play.\" And later in the book, \"I use substitution in order to 'make believe' in its literal sense-- to make me believe [...], in order to send me into the moment-to-moment spontaneous action of my newly selected self on stage.\"\n\nHagen is clear that substitution is a means to further connect actors to their characters and the actions of the play, as opposed to, for instance, bringing on tears. \"Substitution is not an end in itself, not an end to involve you for self-involvement's sake without consequent action. Let me state strongly, in case any of you have misunderstood, that substitution is the aspect of the work which strengthens your faith and your sense of reality in each stage of the total work on character. It is a way of bringing about justified, personal character actions.\"\n\nHagen also warns against confronting any traumatic experiences, believing it to be unhelpful. \"There are teachers who actually force actors into dealing with something buried (their response to a death of a parent, or the trauma of a bad accident). What results is hysteria or worse, and is, in my opinion, anti-art. We are not pursuing psychotherapy. If you feel mentally sick or disturbed and in need of it, by all means go to a trained doctor or therapist, but not to an acting teacher.\"\n\nReferences\n\nActing techniques"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which",
"What country did the band have its most success?",
"18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S.",
"Did McKagan or GNR receive any awards for the album?",
"debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart,",
"Did they go on tour?",
"In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour.",
"What is Believe in Me?",
"That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me,"
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | Who did McKagan's solo album do? | 9 | Who did McKagan's Believe in Me? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
20th-century American singers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American singers
21st-century American non-fiction writers
American autobiographers
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American people of Irish descent
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American male guitarists
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American rock songwriters
Guns N' Roses members
Jane's Addiction members
Living people
Loaded (band) members
Musicians from Seattle
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Sportswriters from Washington (state)
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21st-century American drummers
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20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"Beautiful Disease is an unreleased solo album by Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan which was slated to be released in 1999. However, it was shelved after a merger between McKagan's parent label Polygram and Universal, and McKagan lost the rights to release it.\n\nOverview\nThe album was recorded through 1998 in Duff McKagan's home studio with all the instruments and vocals on the album provided by McKagan himself, with the addition of guests like Mike Bordin, Michael Barragan, Abe Laboriel Jr and ex-Guns N' Roses members Slash and Izzy Stradlin. Beautiful Disease included new versions of the songs \"Seattlehead\" and \"Mezz\" that were previously featured on releases of Duff McKagan's previous bands, Neurotic Outsiders and 10 Minute Warning respectively.\n\nThe album was supposed to be released on Duff McKagan's birthday February 5, 1999. The promotional campaign for the album was started by Geffen Records with promo copies being distributed. During the same time a merger between Polygram and Universal occurred and Geffen was merged with A&M Records into Interscope and McKagan's album was among others that was shelved.\n\nNevertheless, Duff McKagan went on tour in support of the album putting up a band with Dez Cadena of Black Flag, Taz Bentley of the Burden Brothers and Michael Barragan of Plexi.\n\nDuring the tour McKagan came up with the idea to release a live album that would include the unreleased material. This resulted in Loaded's Episode 1999: Live live album that featured six songs from Beautiful Disease: \"Seattlehead\", \"Superman\", \"Shinin' Down\", \"Missing You\", \"Then and Now\" and \"Mezz\".\n\nThe songs \"Seattlehead\", \"Superman\", and \"Then and Now\" were eventually re-recorded and released on Loaded's debut studio album Dark Days.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Duff McKagan, except where noted.\n\n\"Seattlehead\" - 4:17\n\"Who's to Blame\" - 2:06\n\"Superman\" - 3:12\n\"Song for Beverly\" - 4:33\n\"Put You Back\" (Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin) - 3:24\n\"Shinin' Down\" (Al Bloch) - 2:54\n\"Missing You\" (Duff McKagan, Michael Barragan) - 4:52\n\"Hope\" - 4:32\n\"Holiday\" (Al Bloch) - 2:22\n\"Then and Now\" (Duff McKagan, Paul Solger) - 4:10\n\"Rain\" - 4:17\n\"Beautiful Disease\" (Duff McKagan, Eddie Hewlett) - 2:43\n\"Mezz\" - 4:42\n\nPersonnel\n\nStudio personnel\nDuff McKagan - vocals, bass guitar, guitar, drums\n\nAdditional personnel\nSlash - lead guitar on \"Hope\" and \"Mezz\"\nIzzy Stradlin - rhythm guitar on \"Put You Back\"\nMike Bordin - drums\nMichael Barragan - rhythm guitar on \"Missing you\", \"Who's to Blame\" and \"Then and Now\", Moog Prodigy on \"Missing you\"\nNorm Block - drums on \"Missing you\", \"Who's to Blame\" and \"Then and Now\"\n\nReferences\n\nDuff McKagan albums\nUnreleased albums",
"\"Seattlehead\" (also typeset Seattle Head) is a song written by American musician Duff McKagan. It is best known as a song by his band Loaded, from their album Dark Days; it also featured on earlier releases by Neurotic Outsiders as well as McKagan's unreleased solo album Beautiful Disease.\n\nComposition\n\nThe song was originally written in the early 1990s, with its subject matter being \"what L.A. came to represent, rather than what it is\". It also references McKagan's move to Los Angeles from Seattle in 1984 with the lyrics: \"Movin' to the city sight unseen/19 years of age I'm packing my bags/Hollywood was all the rage/I came to you in 1984/You showed me in, then you shut the door.\"\n\nReleases\nThe first version of the song was released as the B-side of the 1996 single \"Jerk\" by the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders, featuring McKagan, Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor. It also featured on the Angelina EP released in Japan in 1997. This early version featured a shorter first verse than the later releases.\n\n\"Seattlehead\" was later re-recorded for McKagan's second solo album Beautiful Disease, which was ultimately shelved after Geffen and Interscope Records merged. McKagan was dropped from the roster of the \"new combined\" label. \n\nAfter the cancellation of the release of Beautiful Disease, McKagan decided to make a live release featuring new songs, which resulted in the release of Loaded's live album Episode 1999: Live including a live version of the song. McKagan began re-recording some of the songs from Beautiful Disease such as \"Seattlehead\" as well as new material at Jupiter Studios in Seattle for Loaded's debut studio album: Dark Days, released in the U.S. and Japan in July 2001 and in Europe in July 2002.\n\nA 2001 music video by Eric Waggoner featuring clips of the band performing live in Japan was made available on Loaded's YouTube page in 2008.\n\nReferences\n\nLoaded (band) songs\nSongs written by Duff McKagan"
] |
[
"Duff McKagan",
"1985-1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders",
"Did McKagan play for Guns N Roses",
"McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses,",
"What year did he start with the band?",
"In April 1985,",
"Did he have to tryout?",
"replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose.",
"Did he enjoy success with the band?",
"Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which",
"What country did the band have its most success?",
"18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S.",
"Did McKagan or GNR receive any awards for the album?",
"debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart,",
"Did they go on tour?",
"In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour.",
"What is Believe in Me?",
"That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me,",
"Who did McKagan's solo album do?",
"he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument."
] | C_52c40087ab3c49db96bd4d002dd31a15_0 | What is the Neurotic Outsiders? | 10 | What is the Neurotic Outsiders? | Duff McKagan | In April 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose and guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide. In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult. In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument. In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now--from 1994 to 1997--and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability." CANNOTANSWER | Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. | Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan (born February 5, 1964), sometimes credited as Duff "Rose" McKagan, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and author. He played bass for twelve years in the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. McKagan rejoined the band in 2016, following their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Toward the end of his first tenure with Guns N' Roses, McKagan released a solo album, Believe in Me (1993), and formed the short-lived supergroup Neurotic Outsiders. Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan briefly reunited with his pre-success Seattle punk band 10 Minute Warning, before forming the still-active hard rock band Loaded, in which he performs lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Between 2002 and 2008, he played bass in the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum. He briefly performed with Alice in Chains in 2006, with Jane's Addiction in 2010 and joined the supergroup Hollywood Vampires in 2016. He has also collaborated in several short-lived projects with fellow Seattle-native musicians Mike McCready (primarily of Pearl Jam) and Barrett Martin (formerly of Screaming Trees) including Walking Papers and Levee Walkers.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. He has written weekly columns on a wide variety of topics for SeattleWeekly.com, Playboy.com, and ESPN.com. Previously a high school drop-out, he attended Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics in the early 2000s, and subsequently founded the wealth management firm Meridian Rock.
Early life
Michael Andrew McKagan grew up in Seattle's largely working-class University District, the youngest of eight children born to Marie and Elmer "Mac" McKagan. He has been called "Duff" since toddlerhood, to which he once referred as "an Irish thing". Following his parents' divorce, his mother supported the family by taking a job as a medical stenographer. He was taught how to play bass by his brother Bruce, further developing his skills by playing along with the albums 1999 by Prince and Damaged by Black Flag. In his autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), McKagan said that he fashioned himself after punk bassists such as Barry Adamson and Paul Simonon.
Although an honors student, McKagan dropped out of Roosevelt High School in the tenth grade. He then worked as a pastry chef for the Great American Food and Beverage Company while earning his GED. He was later awarded an honorary diploma after speaking at the class of 2012's graduation ceremony.
Career
1979–1985: Early years
In 1979, at the age of 15, McKagan formed the punk band The Vains, in which he played bass. During this time he performed under the stage name Nico Teen. The band released one single, "School Jerks", in 1980.
In 1980, McKagan joined the pop-punk band The Fastbacks as their drummer. He first performed with the band in December 1980, and appeared on their 1981 debut single "It's Your Birthday", which was issued on guitarist Kurt Bloch's label No Threes Records. He was later on the song "Someone Else's Room", which was included on the Seattle Syndrome: Volume One compilation album, also released in 1981. His last performance was in July 1981.
Around this time he also played guitar in the punk band The Living, which opened shows for Hüsker Dü and D.O.A., which developed a devoted following. In 1982 they recorded an EP, which remained unreleased until April 2021, under the title 1982.
In 1982, McKagan became the drummer for the hardcore punk band The Fartz, with whom he recorded several demos, five of which were included on their 1990 album You, We See You Crawling. After several line-up changes, The Fartz evolved into the post-punk band 10 Minute Warning, for which McKagan played guitar.
In 1983, McKagan moved to Los Angeles, California, with one of his brothers where he found work as an appetizer server at a Black Angus restaurant in Northridge. Answering an ad for a bass guitarist in a local newspaper, he met guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler, with whom he formed the short-lived band Road Crew. They auditioned a number of singers, including one-time Black Flag vocalist Ron Reyes, and worked on material that included the main riff of what would become the Guns N' Roses song "Rocket Queen". Slash eventually disbanded the group due to them not being able to find a singer, as well as Adler's lack of work ethic compared to himself and McKagan.
1985–1997: Guns N' Roses, Believe in Me and Neurotic Outsiders
In March 1985, McKagan replaced bassist Ole Beich in Guns N' Roses, which was newly founded by singer Axl Rose, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin of Hollywood Rose, lead guitarist Tracii Guns and drummer Rob Gardner of L.A. Guns. McKagan's Road Crew bandmates Slash and Steven Adler joined the band two months later, after Guns and Gardner quit respectively. After two days of rehearsal, the line-up played its debut gig at The Troubadour on June 6. In 1987, Guns N' Roses released its debut album, Appetite for Destruction, which to date has sold over 28 million copies worldwide, 18 million of which were in the United States, making it the best-selling debut album of all time in the U.S. The following year, the band released G N' R Lies, which sold over five million copies in the U.S. alone, despite containing only eight tracks, four of which were included on the previously released EP Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide.
In 1990, Steven Adler was fired from the band because of his heroin addiction; he was replaced by Matt Sorum of The Cult.
In May 1991, Guns N' Roses embarked on the two-and-a-half-year-long Use Your Illusion Tour. The following September, the band released the long-awaited albums Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, which debuted at No. 2 and No. 1 respectively on the U.S. chart, a feat unachieved by any other group. In November 1991, Izzy Stradlin abruptly left the band; he was replaced by Gilby Clarke of Kill For Thrills. In 1993, the band released "The Spaghetti Incident?", a cover album of mostly punk songs, which proved less successful than its predecessors. McKagan took on lead vocals on four songs, including live favorite "Attitude", originally by the Misfits. That same year, McKagan released his debut solo album, Believe in Me, on which he sang lead vocals and played virtually every instrument.
On April 4, 1993 while touring with Guns N' Roses McKagan was hit in the head with a beer bottle filled with urine thrown by a fan. He was sent to the hospital minutes later. Axl Rose said this to the crowd after McKagan was hit:
"I hate to ruin your fun, and our fun, but somebody just hit Duff in the head with a bottle, and now he's not able to play." "So we're sorry, have a good night. And if you find the asshole, kill him."
Rose threw the mike over his shoulder and walked off the stage.
In 1995, with Guns N' Roses largely inactive, McKagan formed the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols, John Taylor of Duran Duran, and his Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum. Originally a gathering of friends jamming together at the Viper Room in Hollywood, they released their self-titled album on Maverick Records in 1996. The band played a brief tour of Europe and North America, before disbanding in 1997. McKagan was the last member of the Appetite for Destruction lineup to leave Guns N' Roses, resigning as bassist in August 1997. McKagan had recently become a father and wrote about his decision to leave in his autobiography, stating "Guns had been paying rent on studios for three years now—from 1994 to 1997—and still did not have a single song. The whole operation was so erratic that it didn't seem to fit with my hopes for parenthood, for stability."
1997–2002: 10 Minute Warning reunion, Beautiful Disease and Loaded
Following his departure from Guns N' Roses in 1997, McKagan moved back to Seattle, where he met with many of his old friends, including Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard, who convinced him to reunite 10 Minute Warning. Singer Christopher Blue was brought in to replace Steve Verwolf, who was serving a term in federal prison. In 1998, the band released their self-titled album on Sub Pop. The album featured nine tracks, including two new versions of songs originally recorded by The Fartz, namely "Is This the Way?" and "Buried". 10 Minute Warning played its last show on August 22, 1998 at the Roseland theater in Portland, Oregon.
McKagan's second solo album, Beautiful Disease, was intended to be released in 1999, but became lost in the legal shuffle of the merge between Geffen Records and Interscope Records. McKagan was dropped from Geffen's roster, and subsequently lost all commercial rights to release the record. For the tour supporting his ill-fated solo album, he formed the band Loaded, which consisted of McKagan on bass and vocals, Dez Cadena, formerly of Black Flag, on guitar, Michael Barragan, formerly of Plexi, on guitar, and Taz Bentley, formerly of The Reverend Horton Heat, on drums. Loaded independently released the live record Episode 1999: Live, before disbanding in late 1999.
In 2000, McKagan reformed Loaded, remaining as the lead vocalist but switching from bass to rhythm guitar, and adding drummer Geoff Reading of Green Apple Quick Step, guitarist Mike Squires of Harvey Danger, and bassist Jeff Rouse of Alien Crime Syndicate. Both Squires and Rouse joined after the recording of the band's debut album, Dark Days, released in 2001. Dave Dederer, formerly of The Presidents of the United States of America, took up recording duties for the album.
In 2002, while on tour, both Squires and Rouse left Loaded to join the reformed Alien Crime Syndicate. Former Wasted Youth and Electric Love Hogs guitarist Dave Kushner and former Burning Witch bassist George Stuart Dahlquist were brought in to replace them. McKagan and Kushner went on to form Velvet Revolver, putting Loaded on hiatus.
2002–2010: Velvet Revolver, Alice in Chains, Loaded reunion, Jane's Addiction
In 2002, McKagan founded the supergroup Velvet Revolver with his former Guns N' Roses bandmates Slash and Matt Sorum, and Loaded guitarist Dave Kushner. Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland completed the line-up. In 2004, they released their debut album, Contraband, which debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. chart and sold two million copies. In 2005, the band was nominated for three Grammys, Rock Album of the Year, Rock Song, and Hard Rock Performance for their Contraband single Slither which won their first and only Grammy. Their second album, Libertad, was released in 2007 to mixed reviews; it failed to achieve the same commercial success as its predecessor. The band toured extensively, until Weiland left in April 2008 to reunite with Stone Temple Pilots. Velvet Revolver has been on hiatus since Weiland's departure.
In 2006, McKagan temporarily joined Alice in Chains as a rhythm guitarist, performing with the band for the first time at VH1's Decades Rock Live concert honoring Heart, and later during their reunion tour.
McKagan subsequently reunited Loaded, with Mike Squires and Jeff Rouse returning to the group, and that same year, they released the EP Wasted Heart. In 2009, the band released its second studio album, Sick, and embarked on tours with Mötley Crüe and Black Stone Cherry. Later that year, Geoff Reading departed the band; he was replaced by Isaac Carpenter.
In 2010, McKagan briefly joined Jane's Addiction, with lead guitarist Dave Navarro originally confirming that McKagan had joined the band on a permanent basis. On joining the band, McKagan stated, "Something like a chance to write, record, and perhaps even perform with a band of the quality of Jane's Addiction does not come around every day. I have a lot of respect for this band and the guys in it." He worked on several songs with Jane's Addiction and played four shows with the band—two in Los Angeles, and two in Europe, including one at Rock in Rio in Madrid.
On September 6, six months after McKagan joined the band, Jane's Addiction announced that they had parted ways due to the fact that "musically [they] were all headed in different directions."
2010-present: Kings of Chaos, his book, Walking Papers, return to Guns N' Roses and Tenderness
On October 14, 2010, McKagan appeared on stage with Guns N' Roses for the first time since 1993 at The O2 Arena in London. He played bass on "You Could Be Mine", electric guitar on "Nice Boys" and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and acoustic guitar and tambourine on "Patience". McKagan then returned to Loaded, with whom he recorded a third studio album, The Taking, which was released in 2011. Loaded twice served as opening act for Guns N' Roses in December of that year, with McKagan again briefly joining his old band on stage.
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* is the title of McKagan's book released in 2011 in which he tells his view and perspectives on stories encountered during his career.
On April 14, 2012, McKagan was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the classic lineup of Guns N' Roses.
In 2012, McKagan went on tour with the Rock N Roll All Stars, a band that consisted of many of rock's most recognized performers. The band downsized and became the Kings Of Chaos in 2013. The primary members with McKagan are Joe Elliott of Def Leppard and Joe Elliott's Down N' Outz, Matt Sorum of Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver, Gilby Clarke of Guns N' Roses and Steve Stevens of Billy Idol's band. Others who round out the group are: Glenn Hughes of Deep Purple fame and Sebastian Bach, formerly of Skid Row. The band released the cover song "Never Before" by Deep Purple.
Also in 2012 McKagan formed the band Walking Papers with former The Missionary Position members, played on the self-titled debut album and toured with them in 2013.
In 2014, McKagan again briefly reunited with Guns N' Roses. He played five full shows in South America, filling in for Tommy Stinson. McKagan subsequently played with Guns N' Roses at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards show in Los Angeles. During Guns N' Roses' spring 2014 residency at The Joint in Las Vegas, McKagan played another full concert with the band.
In 2016, McKagan was announced (alongside Slash), as having returned to Guns N' Roses to headline Coachella. After playing a secret warmup gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles on April 1, 2016, The band embarked on the Not in This Lifetime... Tour.
On December 5, 2018, it was announced that McKagan is currently in production for a new solo album to be released in 2019. On March 10, 2019, McKagan revealed that the album, Tenderness, would be released on May 31 and also released a track from the album titled "Chip Away".
Session work
In 1990, McKagan—along with his Guns N' Roses bandmate Slash—co-wrote and played several songs on Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick. In 1995, he collaborated with Slash on his solo project Slash's Snakepit; he co-wrote "Beggars and Hangers-On" off their album It's Five O'Clock Somewhere, which he played live during a Snakepit show in May of that year. In 1998, McKagan collaborated with his former Guns N' Roses bandmate Izzy Stradlin on his solo album 117°. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album Ride On, and joined him on a tour of Japan supporting the album. Also in 1999, he contributed to the album Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper, an Alice Cooper tribute album. In 2001, McKagan played on the album Skyjin by Zilch, Mark Lanegan's solo album Field Songs, and Izzy Stradlin's album River. The following year, he played on Stradlin's album On Down the Road. In 2004, he again collaborated with Mark Lanegan on his album Bubblegum, along with Stradlin.
McKagan played on three tracks off Izzy Stradlin's 2008 album Concrete, including the title track, as well as seven songs off his album Wave of Heat, which was released in 2010. Also in 2010, McKagan appeared on Slash's eponymous debut solo album; he played on the track "Watch This" with Dave Grohl on drums. That year, he also made a guest appearance—along with Slash and Matt Sorum—on Macy Gray's album The Sellout, and appeared on the Manic Street Preachers song "A Billion Balconies Facing the Sun" off their album Postcards From a Young Man.
In 2020, McKagan played bass and cowrote five songs on Ozzy Osbourne's album Ordinary Man, along with Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. Mckagan's Guns N Roses bandmate Slash is featured on the song "Straight to Hell", which also features cowriter Andrew Watt of California Breed fame.
In 2021, McKagan played bass on Jerry Cantrell's album Brighten.
Other ventures
McKagan has two minor acting credits; in 1988, he appeared with his Guns N' Roses bandmates in the Dirty Harry film The Dead Pool, and in 1997, he played a rocker vampire in an episode of the television series Sliders. In 1999, he appeared in Anthony Scarpa's documentary film Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures, which focuses on the all-female hard rock band Betty Blowtorch, whose debut EP Get Off McKagan produced the same year.
In addition to his musical career, McKagan has established himself as a writer. Since August 2008, he has written a weekly column for SeattleWeekly.com, from January to December 2009, he wrote a weekly financial column titled "Duffonomics" for Playboy.com, and since January 2011, he has written a weekly sports column for ESPN.com. McKagan's autobiography, It's So Easy (And Other Lies), was released on October 4, 2011. His second book, How to Be a Man: (and other illusions) was released on May 12, 2015. McKagan released a three-song EP with the same title to accompany the book, featuring Izzy Stradlin, Jerry Cantrell, Roy Mayorga and Taz Bentley.
In 2011, McKagan founded Meridian Rock, a wealth management firm for musicians. Headed by McKagan and British investor Andy Bottomley, the firm aims to educate musicians about their finances.
McKagan has been involved in "The Heroes Project", founded by his friend Tim Medvetz, which is dedicated to helping soldiers and their families. As part of the project he took part in a climb up Mount Rainier in 2012, accompanying a former soldier with a prosthetic limb. During this climb McKagan suffered a potentially fatal cerebral edema.
It was announced in 2012 that Rainstorm Entertainment will produce a "biographical documentary" based on It's So Easy (And Other Lies). McKagan is listed as a producer and writer. The film, titled It's So Easy (And Other Lies) after the book, was released in May 2016. Those interviewed for the project include Mick Jagger, Elton John, Slash, Joe Elliott and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Following an appearance with the Hollywood Vampires at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony in tribute to Lemmy Kilmister, McKagan was considered a member of the supergroup, although his time in the band was short-lived as he returned to Guns N' Roses two months later.
Personal life
On May 28, 1988, McKagan married his first wife, Mandy Brixx; the couple divorced on April 1, 1990. In September 1992, he married Linda Johnson; this too ended in divorce in September 1995. On August 28, 1999 he married Susan Holmes. They have two daughters together: Grace "Grave" Elizabeth (born August 1997) and Mae Marie (born July 2000). McKagan and his family reside in Seattle.
McKagan was one of the last people confirmed to have seen Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain before he died on April 5, 1994. He sat next to Cobain on a flight from Los Angeles to Seattle on April 1.
McKagan later recalled, "I didn't have any foresight that the guy was going to do what he did. I could tell he was bummed out, and I'd been that way before... I thought I'd ask him to come stay at my house; I turned around and he was gone."
On May 10, 1994, at the age of 30, McKagan became gravely ill due to acute alcohol-induced pancreatitis, which caused his pancreas to swell to the size of a football and leak digestive enzymes into his body. He was taken to Northwest Hospital and Medical Center in Seattle, where he was monitored until the swelling had shrunken. McKagan was later told by his doctors that he would be dead within a month if he did not stop drinking. He had made previous efforts to overcome his addiction, but this health crisis was his incentive to become sober for good. In his autobiography, he attributed his sobriety to exercise through first mountain biking, and later martial arts.
McKagan has also claimed in his autobiography that the fictional product Duff Beer on The Simpsons was named after him, and has received no royalties, but Simpsons creator Matt Groening called the claim "absurd". Simpsons writer Mike Reiss similarly dismissed the claim in his memoir Springfield Confidential, stating that he'd "never heard of [McKagan]".
A high school drop-out, McKagan enrolled in a basic finance course at Santa Monica Community College in 1994; he explained that going over the financial records from his Guns N' Roses days had made him want to understand the process more, stating, "I couldn't make sense of it. I didn't know how much we had made or lost on the tour. As a 30 year-old millionaire, how do I admit to somebody that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing?"
In 2000, after attending several more classes at Seattle Central Community College, McKagan enrolled full-time at Seattle University's Albers School of Business and Economics. When Velvet Revolver took off in his final year as an undergraduate student, McKagan took a hiatus from business school to go on tour; he is still one quarter short of graduating.
Books
"It's So Easy" *and other lies* – Touchstone 2011,
Discography
Solo Studio albums
Believe in Me (1993)
Beautiful Disease (1999; unreleased)
Tenderness (2019)
with Guns N' Roses
Appetite for Destruction (1987)
G N' R Lies (1988)
Use Your Illusion I (1991)
Use Your Illusion II (1991)
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)
with Neurotic Outsiders
Neurotic Outsiders (1996)
with Loaded
Dark Days (2001)
Sick (2009)
The Taking (2011)
with Velvet Revolver
Contraband (2004)
Libertad (2007)
with Walking Papers
Walking Papers (2013)
WP2 (2018)
with Jerry Cantrell
Brighten (2021)
with The Living
1982 (2022)
References
Further reading
External links
Duff McKagan's column on ESPN.com
"Duff McKagan —Wikipedia: Fact or Fiction?" Loudwire, June 3, 2015. —Video.
What We Live For A true story on The Moth as told by Duff McKagan
1964 births
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Hollywood Vampires (band) members
20th-century American male writers
21st-century American male writers
Singer-songwriters from California | true | [
"\"Seattlehead\" (also typeset Seattle Head) is a song written by American musician Duff McKagan. It is best known as a song by his band Loaded, from their album Dark Days; it also featured on earlier releases by Neurotic Outsiders as well as McKagan's unreleased solo album Beautiful Disease.\n\nComposition\n\nThe song was originally written in the early 1990s, with its subject matter being \"what L.A. came to represent, rather than what it is\". It also references McKagan's move to Los Angeles from Seattle in 1984 with the lyrics: \"Movin' to the city sight unseen/19 years of age I'm packing my bags/Hollywood was all the rage/I came to you in 1984/You showed me in, then you shut the door.\"\n\nReleases\nThe first version of the song was released as the B-side of the 1996 single \"Jerk\" by the supergroup Neurotic Outsiders, featuring McKagan, Guns N' Roses bandmate Matt Sorum, Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones and Duran Duran bassist John Taylor. It also featured on the Angelina EP released in Japan in 1997. This early version featured a shorter first verse than the later releases.\n\n\"Seattlehead\" was later re-recorded for McKagan's second solo album Beautiful Disease, which was ultimately shelved after Geffen and Interscope Records merged. McKagan was dropped from the roster of the \"new combined\" label. \n\nAfter the cancellation of the release of Beautiful Disease, McKagan decided to make a live release featuring new songs, which resulted in the release of Loaded's live album Episode 1999: Live including a live version of the song. McKagan began re-recording some of the songs from Beautiful Disease such as \"Seattlehead\" as well as new material at Jupiter Studios in Seattle for Loaded's debut studio album: Dark Days, released in the U.S. and Japan in July 2001 and in Europe in July 2002.\n\nA 2001 music video by Eric Waggoner featuring clips of the band performing live in Japan was made available on Loaded's YouTube page in 2008.\n\nReferences\n\nLoaded (band) songs\nSongs written by Duff McKagan",
"Matt Sorum is an American rock musician, who has released two solo studio albums and a further 14 studio albums with various groups.\nHe mainly plays drums.\n\nSolo\n\nAlbums\n\nOther appearances\n\nwith Y Kant Tori Read\n\nwith Guns N' Roses\n\nOther appearance\n\nwith Slash's Snakepit\n\nwith the Power Rangers Orchestra\n\nwith Neurotic Outsiders\n\nwith Hawk\n\nwith The Cult\n\nwith Velvet Revolver\n\nwith Camp Freddy\n\nwith Johnny Crash\n\nwith Kings of Chaos\n\nwith Deadland Ritual\n\nGuest appearances\n\nReferences\n\nDiscography\nDiscographies of American artists\nRock music discographies"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | When was En Vogue formed? | 1 | When was En Vogue formed? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | 1988, | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"Claude Luter (23 July 1923 – 6 October 2006) was a jazz clarinetist who doubled on soprano saxophone.\n\nLuter was born and died in Paris. He began on trumpet, but switched to clarinet. He might be best known for being an accompanist to Sidney Bechet when he was in Paris, but he also worked with Barney Bigard and French writer and musician Boris Vian.\n\nDiscography\nEn Concert (06/16/2003)\nPuisque Vous Partez En Voyage (01/06/2003)\nJazz Spirituals Disques Vogue SLVLX 426\nParade Disques Vogue CLVLX 221\na Bobino Disques Vogue SLVLX 414\nAnd His Orchestra Disques Vogue LVLX 156\n\nExternal links\n[ All Music]\n\nDixieland clarinetists\nDixieland saxophonists\nFrench jazz clarinetists\nFrench jazz saxophonists\nMale saxophonists\nMusicians from Paris\n1923 births\n2006 deaths\n20th-century French musicians\n20th-century saxophonists\n20th-century French male musicians\nFrench male jazz musicians",
"Vogue Mexico & Latin America is the Latin American edition of Vogue magazine. It is published in Mexico as Vogue Mexico and in the United States and Latin America as Vogue Latin America, except for Brazil.\n\nVogue Mexico was first released in the 1980s and suspended in the 1990s. In 1999 it was released again as Vogue and Latin America and became the thirteenth edition of Vogue when its first issue was released for October 1999. It is published in Mexico and 12 countries in Latin America like Peru or Argentina, except for Brazil.\n\nHistory \nVogue & Latin America was known as Vogue En Español (Vogue in Spanish) since the first issue was released for October 1999.\n\n2002-2012: Eva Hughes as editor \nEva Hughes became the editor-in-chief for the magazine in September 2002. Under her leadership, circulation doubled. In 2012 she was named CEO for Condé Nast Mexico and Latin America and stepped down as editor for the magazine.\n\n2012-2016: Kelly Talamas as editor \nKelly Talamas joined Vogue Mexico in 2007 as editorial coordinator, then she was named fashion editor, and by the end of 2012 she was appointed as editor-in-chief for the magazine after Hughes' departure. She was responsible for the creation of Who's On Next?, which spotlit new and local regional designers. In 2016, she was appointed as Creative Director for Condé Nast Mexico and Latin America.\n\n2016-present: Karla Martínez as editor \nKarla Martínez was appointed as editor-in-chief for the magazine in June 2016, after Talamas was named creative director. Martínez served as associate editor, previous to the promotion.\n\nReferences \n\nFashion magazines\n Latinoamérica"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | Who were the members/ | 2 | Who were the members of En Vogue? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"In 1948, the new Romanian Communist regime undertook a political purge of the members of the Romanian Academy. In all, 113 members were removed that June, representing over two-thirds of the total membership at the beginning of the year. Fifty-five members of the \"old\" academy, mainly scientists, were admitted into the \"new\" one. In 1990 and 1994, following the Romanian Revolution, 97 of the purged members were restored to the academy, post-mortem. This list presents the names of the purged members, along with the names of those who died in prison and those who spent time in prison.\n\nPurged members (113)\n\nTitular members (26)\n\nLiterature section (8)\n\nHistory section (14)\n\nSciences section (4)\n\nCorresponding members (58)\n\nLiterature section (20)\n\nHistory section (19)\n\nSciences section (19)\n\nHonorary members (29)\n\nPurged members who died in prison (9)\n\nPurged members who were incarcerated (30)\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n Păun Otiman, \"1948 - Anul imensei jertfe a Academiei Române\", in Academica, Nr. 4 (31), December 2013, p.115-124\n\nPurged\nAcademicians, purged\n1948 in Romania\nPolitical and cultural purges\nSocialist Republic of Romania",
"The following is a list of United States senators and representatives who died while they were serving their terms after 2000.\n\n2000s\n\n2010s\n\n2020s\n\nSee also \n List of United States Congress members who died in office (1790–1899)\n List of United States Congress members who died in office (1900–1949)\n List of United States Congress members who died in office (1950–1999)\n List of United States Congress members killed or wounded in office\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1910s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1920s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1930s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1940s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1950s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1960s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1970s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1980s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1990s\n Memorial Services for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 2000s\n Addresses for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1860s\n Addresses for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1870s\n Memorial Addresses for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1880s\n Memorial Addresses for members of the U.S. Congress who died in the 1890s\n\n2000"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,",
"Who were the members/",
"Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | What is Born to Sing? | 3 | What is Born to Sing by En Vogue? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | The album | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"\"I Am Born to Preach the Gospel\" is a gospel song recorded in 1928 by Washington Phillips (18801954; vocals and zither) in gospel blues style. His recording is included in the soundtrack of the 2009 movie My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?.\n\nIn some other recordings, the song is titled \"I Was Born to Sing the Gospel\". The words \"I Am\" or \"I Was\" are sometimes omitted from those titles.\n\nThe song is likely to have been written by Phillips: it is concerned with a similar subject to his 1927 song \"Denomination Blues\", and has lyrical resemblances to it, including the striking phrase \"educated fool\". The singer compares his own experience:\n\nwith that of educated preachers; and with that of Nicodemus, who according to the Gospel of John at 3:1-21 was a ruler of the Jews who visited Jesus by night to learn from Him.\n\nRecordings and performances \n 1928Washington Phillips, 78prm single Columbia 14448-D \n 1988Marion Williams, \"Born to Sing the Gospel\" on the album Born to Sing the Gospel \n 1994Aretha Franklin, \"I Was Born to Sing the Gospel\" broadcast performance from the White House\n 1995Michael Hakanson-Stacy, \"Born to Preach the Gospel\" on the album Pearls & Stones \n 2013Michael Roe, digital download\n\nReferences \n\nBlues songs\nGospel songs\nWashington Phillips songs\n1928 songs\nColumbia Records singles",
"Butterfly and Sword is a 1993 Hong Kong wuxia film loosely based on the novel Liuxing Hudie Jian by Gu Long. Directed by Michael Mak, the film starred Tony Leung, Michelle Yeoh, Jimmy Lin, Joey Wong and Donnie Yen.\n\nPlot\nButterfly has nothing to do with the martial arts world. Her father was once a renowned member of the martial arts world, but she is just another young girl deeply in love with Meng Sing Wan. They live happily in a small hut next to a river, where he spends time trying to catch fish, and writing poetry. From time to time, Sing has to go away on business to earn money, that's what he tells her anyway, but the horrifying truth is that he is an assassin.\n\nHe is a member of the Happy Forest, a group of assassins led by Sister Ko, but he is tired of the never-ending life of killing for a living. Yip is another member of the group, and is Sing's best friend. The both of them, along with Sister Ko, and a girl called Ho Ching grew up together, forming the best of Happy Forest. Yip is in love with Sister Ko, but is afraid to tell her. However, Ko only has eyes for Sing, but Sing regards her only as an older sister.\n\nKo is given a mission by the Grand Eunuch Tsao, who instructs her to steal a letter from the hands of Master Suen from the Elites Villa sect, who was given to him by Grand Eunuch Li, Tsao's adversary in court. Ko tells Sing to fake his own death, then enter Suen's service as a lone swordsman. Sing does this and more. He impresses Suen with his skills and soon has his trust. At this time however, he encounters Suen's girl, who looks remarkably like the Ho Ching that once disappeared many years ago. Suen sees Sing's interest in his woman, and so, gives her to him.\n\nBut on the night of the wedding, Ho Ching tries to steal the message, but fail and dies. Sing is devastated by her death, and he goes back to Happy Forest, confronting Ko as to why he wasn't told that Ho Ching was alive all this time, and was being an undercover. Ko is upset by Sing's outburst, only wanting what is best for all of them. Ko and Yip forces into Suen's Elites Villa, and with Sing already inside, they are able to defeat Suen and take the message. When Ko and Sing deliver the message to Eunuch Tsao, it is revealed that Eunuch Li is really Eunuch Tsao, and that he hatched up the plan to destroy the people of the martial arts world. In the end, Tsao is defeated by the teamwork of Ko, Sing, and a young prince.\n\nCast\nTony Leung as Meng Sing Wan\nMichelle Yeoh as Lady Ko\nJimmy Lin as Prince Cha\nJoey Wong as Butterfly\nDonnie Yen as Yip Cheung\nTok Chung-wa as Lui Heung Chuen\nElvis Tsui as Lord Suen Yuk Pa\nYip Chuen-chan as Miu Siu Siu / Ho Ching\nLee Ka-ting as Lui Chung Yuen\nChang Kuo-chu as Eunuch Tsao / Li Shu Tin\nWong Chung-kui as eunuch\nCho Boon-feng as bald fighter\nChoi Hin-cheung as Lord Suen's man\nLee Wai\nWong Yiu\nLam Gwong-chun\n\nExternal links\n\n1993 films\n1993 action films\nHong Kong films\nHong Kong action films\n1990s Cantonese-language films\nWuxia films"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,",
"Who were the members/",
"Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones",
"What is Born to Sing?",
"The album"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | Were there any hit songs? | 4 | Were there any hit songs on Born to Sing by En Vogue? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | The first single, "Hold On, | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"\"For You to Love\" is a 1988 song by the American recording artist Luther Vandross. The single was released in 1989 in support of his hit album Any Love. The song was a top five U.S. R&B hit that peaked to No. 3 on the R&B singles. Vandross' Any Love album charted three top-five singles on the Billboard Hot R&B Singles chart.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n www.luthervandross.com\n\n1988 songs\nLuther Vandross songs\n1989 singles\nSongs written by Marcus Miller\nSongs written by Luther Vandross\nEpic Records singles",
"\"She Won’t Talk to Me\" is a song by American recording artist Luther Vandross released in 1988. It is the second single from his album Any Love. The song was a top five U.S. R&B hit, top 20 dance play hit, and a top 40 hit on the Billboard’s Hot 100. Vandross performed the song on the January 28, 1989 episode of Saturday Night Live.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1988 singles\n1988 songs\nLuther Vandross songs\nEpic Records singles\nSongs written by Hubert Eaves III\nSongs written by Luther Vandross"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,",
"Who were the members/",
"Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones",
"What is Born to Sing?",
"The album",
"Were there any hit songs?",
"The first single, \"Hold On,"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | What other singles? | 5 | What other singles on Born to Sing, besides Hold On? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"\"Other 99\" is a song by English band Big Audio Dynamite, released as both a 7\" and 12\" single from their third studio album, Tighten Up Vol. 88 (1988). Written by Mick Jones and Don Letts, and following the moderate success of \"Just Play Music!\", \"Other 99\" was released as the second and final single from the album, peaking at No. 81 on the UK Singles Chart, and No. 13 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart. The single features the non-album track, \"What Happened to Eddie?\" as its B-side, which remains exclusive to the single.\n\nTrack listing\n7\" single\n\"Other 99\"\n\"What Happened to Eddie?\"\n\n12\" single and CD single\n\"Other 99 (Extended Mix)\"\n\"Just Play Music! (Club Mix)\"\nMixed by Greg Roberts\n\"What Happened to Eddie?\"\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1988 singles\nBig Audio Dynamite songs\nSongs written by Mick Jones (The Clash)\nCBS Records singles\nSongs written by Don Letts",
"\"One Said to the Other\" is a song by Australian punk rock band the Living End. It was released on 20 January 2003 as the first single from their third album, Modern ARTillery (2003). The song peaked at No. 19 on the Australian ARIA Singles Chart and was ranked No. 52 on Triple J's Hottest 100 for 2003. The songs \"One Said to the Other\" and \"What Would You Do?\" were both recorded in 2002, before the Modern ARTillery sessions.\n\nTrack listing\nAustralian CD single\n \"One Said to the Other\"\n \"What Would You Do?\"\n \"Blinded\"\n \"Fond Farewell\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n2003 singles\n2003 songs\nEMI Records singles\nThe Living End songs\nSongs written by Chris Cheney"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,",
"Who were the members/",
"Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones",
"What is Born to Sing?",
"The album",
"Were there any hit songs?",
"The first single, \"Hold On,",
"What other singles?",
"\"Lies\" and \"You Don't Have to Worry,\""
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | Did they receive any awards or honors? | 6 | Did En Vogue receive any awards or honors? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year, | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | true | [
"The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award is a literary award by the American Library Association (ALA) that annually recognizes the \"author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year.\" The winner(s) receive a bronze medal at the ALA Annual Conference, presented by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) division of ALA.\n\nThe award is named for Theodor Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss, who once said, \"Children want the same things we want: to laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained and delighted.\" \nIt was established in 2004 and inaugurated in 2006 for 2005 publications.\n\nA few runners up are termed Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Books; their authors and illustrators receive certificates.\n\nCriteria\n The book must encourage and support the beginning reader.\n The book must be published in English in the United States during the preceding year. \n There are no limitations as to the character of the book considered except that it will be original and function successfully as a book for beginning readers.\n The author(s) or illustrator(s) must be citizens or residents of the United States.\n The \"author(s) and illustrator(s)\" may include co-authors and co-illustrators. The author(s) and illustrator(s) may be awarded the medal posthumously.\n The text must be directed at readers from pre-K through Grade 2.\n The illustrations must function as keys or clues to the text.\n Fiction, non-fiction, and poetry are all eligible.\n Reprints and compilations are not eligible.\n Subject matter must be intriguing enough to motivate the child to read.\n The book may or may not include short \"chapters\".\n New words should be added slowly enough to make learning them a positive experience.\n Words should be repeated to ensure knowledge retention.\n Sentences must be simple and straightforward.\n There must be a minimum of 24 pages.\n Books may not be longer than 96 pages.\n\nRecipients\n\nMultiple awards \n Tedd Arnold received honors in 2006, 2010, and (with Martha Hamilton, and Mitch Weiss) 2018.\n Cece Bell received honors in 2013 and 2020.\n Dori Hillestad Butler received honors in 2018 and 2019.\n Kate DiCamillo won the 2011 award (with co-author Alison McGhee and illustrator Tony Fucile). She received an honor in 2007.\n Kevin Henkes received honors in 2014 and 2016.\n Paul Meisel received honors in 2012 and 2018.\n David Milgrim received honors in 2017 and 2019.\n Greg Pizzoli won the 2014 award. He received honors in 2017, 2020.\n Cynthia Rylant won the award in 2006 and received an honor in 2015.\n Laura Vaccaro Seeger received honors in 2008 and 2009.\n Mo Willems won the 2008 and 2009 awards. He received honors in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican children's literary awards\nAmerican Library Association awards\nAwards established in 2004\nDr. Seuss\nEnglish-language literary awards",
"Below is a list of awards received by Twins since they were formed in 2001 as a cantopop girl group. They average to receive about 2-3 awards in each Hong Kong music awards. Their major accomplishment is in 2007 when they received the Asia Pacific Most Popular Female Artist Award from Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards.\n\nBecause of the Edison Chen photo scandal in 2008, Gillian took a short leave from the group. And thus the group did not record any songs or receive any awards between March 2008 to 2009.\n\nCommercial Radio Hong Kong Ultimate Song Chart Awards\nThe Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation (叱咤樂壇流行榜頒獎典禮) is a cantopop award ceremony from one of the famous channel in Commercial Radio Hong Kong known as Ultimate 903 (FM 90.3). Unlike other cantopop award ceremonies, this one is judged based on the popularity of the song/artist on the actual radio show.\n\nGlobal Chinese Music Awards\n\nIFPI Hong Kong Sales Awards\nIFPI Awards is given to artists base on the sales in Hong Kong at the end of the year.\n\nJade Solid Gold Top 10 Awards\nThe Jade Solid Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大勁歌金曲頒獎典禮) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1984. The awards are based on Jade Solid Gold show on TVB.\n\nMetro Radio Mandarin Music Awards\n\nMetro Showbiz Hit Awards\nThe Metro Showbiz Hit Awards (新城勁爆頒獎禮) is held in Hong Kong annually by Metro Showbiz radio station. It focus mostly in cantopop music.\n\nRTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards\nThe RTHK Top 10 Gold Songs Awards Ceremony(十大中文金曲頒獎音樂會) is held annually in Hong Kong since 1978. The awards are determined by Radio and Television Hong Kong based on the work of all Asian artists (mostly cantopop) for the previous year.\n\nSprite Music Awards\nThe Sprite Music Awards Ceremony is an annual event given by Sprite China for work artists performed in previous years; awards received on 2008 are actually for the work and accomplishment for 2007.\n\nReferences\n\nTwins\nCantopop"
] |
[
"En Vogue",
"1988-91: Formation and Born to Sing",
"When was En Vogue formed?",
"1988,",
"Who were the members/",
"Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones",
"What is Born to Sing?",
"The album",
"Were there any hit songs?",
"The first single, \"Hold On,",
"What other singles?",
"\"Lies\" and \"You Don't Have to Worry,\"",
"Did they receive any awards or honors?",
" \"Hold On\" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for \"#1 R&B Single of the Year,"
] | C_a1ca73c929bf44ee9baeb638376c0fb4_1 | What else is signification about this time? | 7 | Besides "Hold On" being awarded a Billboard Music Award, what else is signification about 1988? | En Vogue | In the late-1980s, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, The Ronettes and other commercially successful female bands which had flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records. Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue moniker. After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year. Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK, and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA. "Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for "R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo" and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee. CANNOTANSWER | Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing Terry Ellis audition whose plane had been late | En Vogue is an American R&B/pop vocal group whose original lineup consisted of singers Terry Ellis, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones. Formed in Oakland, California, in 1989, En Vogue reached No. 2 on the US Hot 100 with the single "Hold On", taken from their 1990 debut album Born to Sing. The group's 1992 follow-up album Funky Divas reached the top 10 in both the US and UK, and included their second US number two hit "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" as well as the US top 10 hits "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" and "Free Your Mind".
In 1996, "Don't Let Go (Love)" became the group's third, and most successful single, to reach number two in the US, and became their sixth number one on the US R&B chart. Robinson left the group in 1997 shortly before the release of their third album EV3, which reached the US and UK top 10. Jones left the group in 2001, Amanda Cole joined shortly thereafter. However, in 2003, Cole left the group, and Rhona Bennett joined the group during the recording of their album Soul Flower. In 2005, the original members briefly united before disassembling again. In 2009, the original members once again reunited for their "En Vogue: 20th Anniversary". Shortly after the tour, Robinson and Jones again departed from En Vogue, with Bennett rejoining the group as a trio.
En Vogue has sold more than 30 million records worldwide to date, and are often considered one of the best female vocal groups of all time. The group has won seven MTV Video Music Awards, three Soul Train Awards, two American Music Awards, and received seven Grammy nominations. In December 1999, Billboard magazine ranked the band as the 19th most successful recording artist of the 1990s. They ranked as the second most successful female group of the 1990s. In March 2015, Billboard magazine named the group the ninth most-successful girl group of all-time. Two of the group's singles ranks in Billboard's most successful girl group songs of all-time list, "Don't Let Go (Love)" (#12) and "Hold On" (#23).
Band history
1989–1991: Formation and Born to Sing
In the late-1980s, when they were assembling their 1988 compilation project FM2 for Atlantic Records, Oakland-based production and songwriting duo Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy first conceived the idea of a modern-day girl group in the tradition of commercially successful female bands that flourished in the late 1950s and early 1960s . Foster and McElroy envisioned an entertainment unit with interchangeable but not identical parts in which every member would qualify to take the lead vocals on any given number. Thus, their plan was to recruit singers who possessed strong voices, noticeably good looks, and intelligence. Approximately 3,000 women attended the auditions held in 1988, with Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, and Maxine Jones making the final cut. Originally conceived as a trio, Foster and McElroy decided to create a quartet after hearing the audition of Terry Ellis whose plane had been late from Houston, Texas. At first, they selected the band name 4-U but soon shifted to Vogue, ultimately settling on En Vogue, upon learning that another group had already claimed the Vogue name.
After forming, the group began working with their producers on their debut album. Recording began in August 1989 and wrapped up in December of the same year.
Born to Sing was released on April 3, 1990. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 chart and No. 3 on Billboard's R&B Albums Chart. The first single, "Hold On," was released to radio in late February 1990 and became a crossover pop hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and No. 1 on both the R&B singles and Hot Dance Music/Club Play charts. It later went to No. 5 in the UK and became a hit in Europe. The next two singles, "Lies" and "You Don't Have to Worry," each went to No. 1 on the Billboard R&B charts, while the fourth and final single, "Don't Go," charted at No. 3 on the Billboard R&B. The album was later certified triple platinum by the RIAA.
"Hold On" was awarded a Billboard Music Award for "#1 R&B Single of the Year," a Soul Train Award for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single of the Year, Group, Band or Duo and have been nominated for a Grammy Award for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, En Vogue signed an endorsement deal to appear in a Diet Coke commercial directed by Spike Lee.
1992–1994: Funky Divas, Runaway Love and touring
En Vogue's second album, Funky Divas, was released in the spring of 1992. The album debuted at No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Billboard R&B and ultimately doubled the take of its predecessor, going multi-platinum. The album's first two singles: "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)" and "Giving Him Something He Can Feel" both went top 10 and peaked at No. 1 on the R&B charts. The next single, "Free Your Mind" also went top 10. The final two singles "Give It Up Turn It Loose" and "Love Don't Love You" both were top 40 hits.
The album went on to sell more than five million copies, won an American Music Award for "Favorite Soul/R&B Album," and was nominated for five Grammy Awards. The music video for "Free Your Mind" earned the group three MTV Video Music Awards for Best Choreography, Best Dance Video, and Best R&B Video. They were honored with Soul Train's Entertainer of the Year Award. In addition to this, the group was featured in Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, and Essence, and other major publications.
They were the best group
Riding high on the success of Funky Divas, a six-song EP titled Runaway Love was released in the fall of 1993, spawning the hit "Runaway Love."
The group was signed to an endorsement deal with Converse, and was featured as an opening act on Luther Vandross' 1993 "Never Let Me Go" Tour. England, Germany, the Netherlands, and France were among the numerous countries toured. However, according to an article in Vibe magazine, Vandross (by his own admission in interviews) and his entourage clashed with the members of En Vogue during the tour, and he vowed never to work with them again.
En Vogue made numerous television appearances on such series as In Living Color, A Different World, Roc and Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (the latter two in which they also sang the shows' theme songs).
In 1993, En Vogue was featured on Salt-N-Pepa's top 10 hit "Whatta Man", from Salt-N-Pepa's album Very Necessary. The track appeared (slightly edited) on En Vogue's Runaway Love EP.
1994–1998: The departure of Robinson and EV3
In 1995, En Vogue was among numerous African American female vocalists featured on the song "Freedom" for the soundtrack to Mario Van Peebles's film Panther (1995). Also in 1995, while band members Cindy Herron and Maxine Jones went on maternity leave, Ellis recorded and released a solo album titled Southern Gal, which spun off the top 10 R&B single "Where Ever You Are." The same year, the band made a cameo appearance in Joel Schumacher's superhero film Batman Forever. In 1996, En Vogue recorded "Don't Let Go (Love)" for the soundtrack to the motion picture Set It Off. Released as the soundtrack's lead single in the fall 1996, it became the group's biggest hit yet, selling over 1.8 million copies worldwide and becoming certified platinum by the RIAA. In response to the large commercial success of "Don't Let Go (Love)," the group worked on their third studio album. As the album was nearing completion, Robinson chose to leave the group in March 1997 after contractual negotiations reached a stalemate. Despite Robinson's abrupt departure, Ellis, Herron, and Jones continued on as a trio.
Robinson's abrupt departure from En Vogue forced the remaining trio to re-record several of her original lead vocals on their forthcoming album EV3, released in June 1997. A breakaway from previous projects, it marked En Vogue's first project to include a diverse roster of collaborators including credits from Babyface, David Foster, Diane Warren, Andrea Martin, and Ivan Matias along with regular contributors Foster and McElroy. Upon its release, EV3 received mixed reviews from critics, many of whom praised the band's vocal performances but were critical with overall production of the album. In the U.S., it debuted at number eight on both Billboards Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and the Billboard 200 with sales of 76,500 units, the band's highest first-week numbers. Two further singles released from the album, "Whatever" and "Too Gone, Too Long", entered the top 20 and top 40 the Billboard Hot 100, respectively.
In 1998, En Vogue recorded the song "No Fool No More" for the soundtrack to the film Why Do Fools Fall in Love (1998). A top 40 entry on the New Zealand Singles Chart, it was later included on the band's first compilation album Best of En Vogue, released in June 1999. A moderate success, the album reached the top 40 in Austria and the United Kingdom.
2000–2003: Masterpiece Theatre and new member
Masterpiece Theatre, the group's fourth studio album, was released in May 2000. Their first project with Elektra Records, the trio worked exclusively with their founders on the album who made heavy use of samples from classical music and traditional pop music to construct songs for recording. Preceded by leading single "Riddle", the album received a mixed reception from critics upon its release, who were divided by its overall sound, and became a commercial disappointment, reaching number 33 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart and number 67 on the US Billboard 200 only. While Masterpiece Theatre and "Riddle" fared better in international territories, its poor performance resulted in the release of no further singles from the album and the band was soon dropped from the Elektra company.
In 2001, Jones had announced her desire to spend more time with her daughter and departed the group. With Ellis and Herron wanting to continue performing En Vogue, singer-songwriter Amanda Cole joined as a performing member after submitting a demo. The following year, Ellis, Herron, and Cole collaborated with Timothy Eaton on the holiday album The Gift of Christmas, featuring four original songs and eight cover versions of Christmas standards and carols. Released in fall 2002 through Discretion Records, it failed to chart. In December 2002, the trio gave a concert at the Alabama State Fairgrounds in Birmingham, Alabama which was recorded and released, along with bonus footage, on a DVD and live album through Charly Records in 2004. Cole, who felt increasingly limited vocally and creatively, decided to leave the band in favor of a solo career soon after, with singer and actress Rhona Bennett joining after being recommended to Denzel Foster through a mutual friend and songwriting partner.
2004–2008: Soul Flower and impromptu reunion
With Bennett, the trio began work on their sixth album Soul Flower. Produced by Ellis and Herron, it was made independently through their own label Funkigirl Records as well as Foster and McElory's 33rd Street Records, and distribution was handled through an outside deal with Bayside Entertainment. Released to mixed reviews from critics, who noted its mellower tone, the album failed to chart on the Billboard 200, but reached number 47 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 15 on the Independent Albums charts. Its two singles, "Losin' My Mind" and "Ooh Boy", reached the top 40 on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart. During the latter part of 2004, En Vogue traveled three months in Europe as part of the Night of the Proms concerts series, with Jones rejoining the group to fill the place of Herron, who went on maternity leave. The Ellis/Bennett/Jones performing incarnation of the group headlined Lifetime's fifth annual WomenRock! alongside Blondie, Angie Stone, and several others. Performing several of their hits, co-headliner Kelly Clarkson joined them for a rendition of "Free Your Mind."
In 2005, Herron and Robinson rejoined En Vogue, and Bennett withdrew from the group. The original four signed with one of the industry's largest management firms, the Firm Management Group, and began soliciting material for a new studio album which was expected to be released through Los Angeles-based Movemakers and Funkigirl Records. That September, the band joined Salt-N-Pepa for their first joint public performance of their 1994 single "Whatta Man" at VH1 Hip Hop Honors, and briefly toured together. The quartet also collaborated with Stevie Wonder and Prince on the backing vocals and music video for "So What the Fuss" from Wonder's 2005 A Time to Love album, which received a Grammy nomination at the 48th award ceremony in 2006.
After failing to agree on business terms, Robinson once again chose to defect from En Vogue, and Bennett returned to complete the quartet. As a result, En Vogue was let go from the Firm and an album full of new original material did not materialize. En Vogue continued to perform with Ellis, Herron, Jones, and Bennett on selected spot dates in North America, Europe, and Japan. During this time, they teamed with Flemish singer Natalia Druyts on a remix version of her song "Glamorous" which featured lead vocals by Bennett. Released as the second single from Druyts's third studio-album Everything and More (2007), it reached number two on the Ultratop 50 of the Flemish region of Belgium and launched the six-part Natalia Meets En Vogue feat. Shaggy concert series at the Antwerps Sportpaleis in January 2008.
2008–2015: Robinson's return and lawsuits
On June 24, 2008, the original lineup of En Vogue appeared on the BET Awards, where they performed a medley with Alicia Keys, SWV and TLC as a tribute to girl groups of the 1990s. Complimented by the media, who declared their performance one of the evening's highlights, and with people buzzing about the industry return of the original band, the quartet talked about being united on a permanent basis. In August, after performing during selected spot dates, the original members announced their reformation for their 20th Anniversary World Tour which coincided with the release of their debut album Born to Sing (1990) and led them to tour North America, Europe and Japan. In 2009, En Vogue along with singers Beyoncé, John Legend, and Ne-Yo, performed at the Essence Music Festival, held at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans.
Again, new material with Robinson failed to materialize, and in 2010, Herron, Ellis, and Jones signed with René Moore's Rufftown Records in a deal that was to include two albums and touring. While the trio finished several songs for a new album, including promotional single "I'll Cry Later" which was sent to select urban adult contemporary radio stations on September 26, 2011, the comeback stalled and Jones left the band once more. In August 2012, Jones and Robinson announced that they would potentially record a group album together under the name Heirs to the Throne. While Herron and Ellis continued to tour as En Vogue along with a rejoined Bennett,
Jones and Robinson added singer Shaunté Usual to their lineup. However, in 2013, Robinson chose not to begin a new group with her former band member and instead joined the cast of the TV One reality show R&B Divas: Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Jones began touring with singers Alison Carney and Maria Freeman as her new lineup of En Vogue, titled En Vogue to the Max. Jones later lost the right to use the En Vogue name after Herron and Ellis had filed suit against her for unauthorized use of the name, and a judge ruled that Herron and Ellis, as holders of the group's LLC, had exclusive rights to the group's name. Jones went solo and began recording her own original material, releasing her debut single ‘Didn’t I’ and a new ballad version of the En Vogue hit ‘Don’t Let Go (Love)’ with Australian singer Greg Gould which topped the charts and reached over 20 million views.
In July 2014, Bennett, Ellis, and Herron signed a new contract with Pyramid Records and began work on the album Electric Café with mentors Denzil Foster and Thomas McElroy. In November, the trio appeared on the Lifetime holiday film An En Vogue Christmas in which they played fictional versions of themselves, reuniting to perform a benefit concert to save the nightclub where they got their start. The original movie featured En Vogue's hit singles as well as two new tracks and a rendition of "O Holy Night", later released digitally through En Vogue Records. In February 2015, Rufftown sued Ellis and Herron for over US $300 million, claiming the duo violated an exclusive recording contract by signing with Pyramid, alleging breach of contract, negligence, interference and fraud. Settled out of court, it resulted in the release of the extended play Rufftown Presents En Vogue in April 2015, which contained four songs recorded during their time with Rufftown, including "I'll Cry Later".
2016–present: Electric Café and touring
In 2016, En Vogue released "Deja Vu," the first promotional single from Electric Café, through their own label En Vogue Records after signing with Entertainment One Music. The following year, they embarked on the For the Love of Music Tour. The European tour launched on April 6, 2017 in Dublin, Ireland and concluded in Bremen, Germany on April 25. Also in 2017, the trio released three further singles from their forthcoming effort, including buzz singles "I'm Good" and "Have a Seat" featuring Snoop Dogg as well as Ne-Yo-penned lead single "Rocket", the latter of which became their first top 10 hit on Billboards Adult R&B Songs chart in over 20 years.
The band's seventh full-length studio album, Electric Café, their first studio album in 14 years, was released on April 6, 2018. The trio worked with Raphael Saadiq, Dem Jointz, Curtis "Sauce" Wilson as well as regular contributors Foster & McElroy on most of the album. In April 2018, En Vogue began the second leg of their European Tour in support of Electric Café. On August 10, 2018 En Vogue announced on their Facebook-page that the second official single from the album would be the up-tempo "Reach 4 Me". It entered the US Adult R&B Songs Chart at number 29.
In July 2019, the group performed on the song "I Got You (Always and Forever)" alongside Chance the Rapper, Kierra Sheard, and Ari Lennox on the rapper's album The Big Day. In October 2019, original members Robinson and Jones reunited with Ellis, Herron, and Bennett for an on-stage performance to salute music industry executive Sylvia Rhone at the City of Hope Gala 2019, marking the first time all five members performed together. In 2021 the group (Bennett, Ellis & Herron-Braggs) made a cameo in Coming 2 America alongside Salt-N-Pepa.
Members
Terry Ellis (1989–present)
Cindy Herron (1989–present)
Rhona Bennett (2003–2005; 2006–2008; 2012–present)
Former members
Maxine Jones (1989–2001; 2003–2012)
Dawn Robinson (1989–1997; 2005; 2008–2011)
Amanda Cole (2001–2003)
Awards and nominations
Discography
Studio albums
Born to Sing (1990)
Funky Divas (1992)
EV3 (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre (2000)
The Gift of Christmas (2002)
Soul Flower (2004)
Electric Café (2018)
Tours
Born to Sing Tour (1991)
Funky Divas/Never Let Me Go Tour (1993) (with Luther Vandross)
EV3 Tour (1997)
Masterpiece Theatre Tour (2000)
En Vogue Live! (2005)
En Vogue: 20th Anniversary Tour (2009–11)
For the Love of Music (2017)
Filmography
Film
Television
See also
List of best-selling girl groups
References
External links
African-American girl groups
American contemporary R&B musical groups
American pop music groups
American soul musical groups
Atlantic Records artists
Musical groups established in 1989
Musical groups from Oakland, California
American pop girl groups
1989 establishments in California | false | [
"\"What Else Is There?\" is the third single from the Norwegian duo Röyksopp's second album The Understanding. It features the vocals of Karin Dreijer from the Swedish electronica duo The Knife. The album was released in the UK with the help of Astralwerks.\n\nThe single was used in an O2 television advertisement in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia during 2008. It was also used in the 2006 film Cashback and the 2007 film, Meet Bill. Trentemøller's remix of \"What Else is There?\" was featured in an episode of the HBO show Entourage.\n\nThe song was covered by extreme metal band Enslaved as a bonus track for their album E.\n\nThe song was listed as the 375th best song of the 2000s by Pitchfork Media.\n\nOfficial versions\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Album Version) – 5:17\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Radio Edit) – 3:38\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Jacques Lu Cont Radio Mix) – 3:46\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Vocal Version) – 8:03\n\"What Else Is There?\" (The Emperor Machine Dub Version) – 7:51\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Mix) – 8:25\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Edit) – 4:50\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Thin White Duke Remix) (Radio Edit) – 3:06\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Trentemøller Remix) – 7:42\n\"What Else Is There?\" (Vitalic Remix) – 5:14\n\nResponse\nThe single was officially released on 5 December 2005 in the UK. The single had a limited release on 21 November 2005 to promote the upcoming album. On the UK Singles Chart, it peaked at number 32, while on the UK Dance Chart, it reached number one.\n\nMusic video\nThe music video was directed by Martin de Thurah. It features Norwegian model Marianne Schröder who is shown lip-syncing Dreijer's voice. Schröder is depicted as a floating woman traveling across stormy landscapes and within empty houses. Dreijer makes a cameo appearance as a woman wearing an Elizabethan ruff while dining alone at a festive table.\n\nMovie spots\n\nThe song is also featured in the movie Meet Bill as characters played by Jessica Alba and Aaron Eckhart smoke marijuana while listening to it. It is also part of the end credits music of the film Cashback.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nRöyksopp songs\nAstralwerks singles\nSongs written by Svein Berge\nSongs written by Torbjørn Brundtland\n2004 songs\nSongs written by Roger Greenaway\nSongs written by Olof Dreijer\nSongs written by Karin Dreijer",
"Opydorscus fonsecae is a species of tardigrades. It is the only species in the genus Opydorscus, part of the family Halechiniscidae and the subfamily Orzeliscinae. The species has been found on the Brazilian coast of the South Atlantic Ocean. The genus and the species were named by Jeanne Renaud-Mornant in 1983.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nRenaud-Mornant, 1989: \"Opydorscus, un nouveau genre d'Orzeliscinae et sa signification phylogénique (Tardigrada, Arthrotardigrada)\". [Opydorscos: A New Genus of Orzeliscinae and its Phylogenic Signification] Bulletin of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle Section A: Zoology, Biology and Animal Ecology, vol. 11, no. 4, p. 763-771\n\nHalechiniscidae\nFauna of the Atlantic Ocean\nEndemic fauna of Brazil\nAnimals described in 1989\nTaxa named by Jeanne Renaud-Mornant"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win"
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | What happened in 2011? | 1 | What happened in 2011 to Martin Kaymer? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;"
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | What did he do instead? | 2 | What did Kaymer do instead of becoming a full PGA tour member? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"The situation, task, action, result (STAR) format is a technique used by interviewers to gather all the relevant information about a specific capability that the job requires. \n\n Situation: The interviewer wants you to present a recent challenging situation in which you found yourself.\n Task: What were you required to achieve? The interviewer will be looking to see what you were trying to achieve from the situation. Some performance development methods use “Target” rather than “Task”. Job interview candidates who describe a “Target” they set themselves instead of an externally imposed “Task” emphasize their own intrinsic motivation to perform and to develop their performance.\n Action: What did you do? The interviewer will be looking for information on what you did, why you did it and what the alternatives were.\n Results: What was the outcome of your actions? What did you achieve through your actions? Did you meet your objectives? What did you learn from this experience? Have you used this learning since?\n\nThe STAR technique is similar to the SOARA technique.\n\nThe STAR technique is also often complemented with an additional R on the end STARR or STAR(R) with the last R resembling reflection. This R aims to gather insight and interviewee's ability to learn and iterate. Whereas the STAR reveals how and what kind of result on an objective was achieved, the STARR with the additional R helps the interviewer to understand what the interviewee learned from the experience and how they would assimilate experiences. The interviewee can define what they would do (differently, the same, or better) next time being posed with a situation.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nThe ‘STAR’ technique to answer behavioral interview questions\nThe STAR method explained\n\nJob interview",
"\"What Did I Do to You?\" is a song recorded by British singer Lisa Stansfield for her 1989 album, Affection. It was written by Stansfield, Ian Devaney and Andy Morris, and produced by Devaney and Morris. The song was released as the fourth European single on 30 April 1990. It included three previously unreleased songs written by Stansfield, Devaney and Morris: \"My Apple Heart,\" \"Lay Me Down\" and \"Something's Happenin'.\" \"What Did I Do to You?\" was remixed by Mark Saunders and by the Grammy Award-winning American house music DJ and producer, David Morales. The single became a top forty hit in the European countries reaching number eighteen in Finland, number twenty in Ireland and number twenty-five in the United Kingdom. \"What Did I Do to You?\" was also released in Japan.\n\nIn 2014, the remixes of \"What Did I Do to You?\" were included on the deluxe 2CD + DVD re-release of Affection and on People Hold On ... The Remix Anthology. They were also featured on The Collection 1989–2003 box set (2014), including previously unreleased Red Zone Mix by David Morales.\n\nCritical reception\nThe song received positive reviews from music critics. Matthew Hocter from Albumism viewed it as a \"upbeat offering\". David Giles from Music Week said it is \"beautifully performed\" by Stansfield. A reviewer from Reading Eagle wrote that \"What Did I Do to You?\" \"would be right at home on the \"Saturday Night Fever\" soundtrack.\"\n\nMusic video\nA music video was produced to promote the single, directed by Philip Richardson, who had previously directed the videos for \"All Around the World\" and \"Live Together\". It features Stansfield with her kiss curls, dressed in a white outfit and performing with her band on a stage in front of a jumping audience. The video was later published on Stansfield's official YouTube channel in November 2009. It has amassed more than 1,6 million views as of October 2021.\n\nTrack listings\n\n European/UK 7\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK/Japanese CD single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix Edit) – 4:20\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n UK 10\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Mark Saunders Remix) – 5:52\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 5:19\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 4:17\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:59\n\n European/UK 12\" single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"My Apple Heart\" – 4:22\n\"Lay Me Down\" – 3:19\n\"Something's Happenin'\" – 3:15\n\n UK 12\" promotional single\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Morales Mix) – 7:59\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Anti Poll Tax Dub) – 6:31\n\n Other remixes\n\"What Did I Do to You?\" (Red Zone Mix) – 7:45\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nLisa Stansfield songs\n1990 singles\nSongs written by Lisa Stansfield\n1989 songs\nArista Records singles\nSongs written by Ian Devaney\nSongs written by Andy Morris (musician)"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well."
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | Which tournaments did he play in Europe? | 3 | Which tournaments did Kaymer play in Europe? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"The Europe/Africa Zone was one of three zones of regional competition in the 2015 Fed Cup .\n\nGroup I \n Venue: Syma Sport and Events Centre, Budapest, Hungary (indoor hard)\n Date: 4–7 February\n\nThe sixteen teams were divided into four pools of four teams. The four pool winners will take part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to the World Group II Play-offs. The nations finishing last in their pools will take part in relegation play-offs, with the two losing nations being relegated to Group II for 2016.\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to World Group II play-offs.\n and were relegated to Europe/Africa Group II in 2016.\n\nGroup II \n Venue: Tere Tenniscentre, Tallinn, Estonia (indoor hard)\n Dates: 4–7 February\n\nThe eight teams were divided into two pools of four teams. The two nations placing first and second will take part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to Group I. The nations finishing last in their pools will take part in relegation play-offs, with the two losing nations being relegated to Group III for 2016.\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to Europe/Africa Group I in 2016.\n and were relegated to Europe/Africa Group III in 2016.\n\nGroup III \n\n Venue: Bellevue, Ulcinj, Montenegro (outdoor clay)\n Dates: 13–18 April\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to Europe/Africa Group II in 2016.\n\nReferences \n\n Fed Cup Result, 2015 Europe/Africa Group I\n Fed Cup Result, 2015 Europe/Africa Group II\n Fed Cup Result, 2015 Europe/Africa Group III\n\nExternal links \n Fed Cup website\n\n \nEurope Africa\nInternational sports competitions in Budapest\nTennis tournaments in Hungary\nSports competitions in Tallinn\nTennis tournaments in Estonia\nTennis tournaments in Montenegro\n21st century in Tallinn\n2000s in Budapest\nFebruary 2015 sports events in Europe\nApril 2015 sports events in Europe",
"The Europe/Africa Zone was one of three zones of regional competition in the 2014 Fed Cup.\n\nGroup I \n Venue: Syma Sport and Events Centre, Budapest, Hungary (indoor hard)\n Date: 4–9 February\n\nThe sixteen teams were divided into four pools of four teams. The four pool winners took part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to the World Group II Play-offs. The nations finishing last in their pools took part in relegation play-offs, with the two losing nations being relegated to Group II for 2015.\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to World Group II play-offs.\n and were relegated to Europe/Africa Group II in 2015.\n\nGroup II \n Venue: Šiauliai Tennis School, Šiauliai, Lithuania (indoor hard)\n Dates: 16–19 April\n\nThe eight teams were divided into two pools of four teams. The two nations placing first and second took part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to Group I. The nations finished last in their pools took part in relegation play-offs, with the two losing nations being relegated to Group III for 2015.\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to Europe/Africa Group I in 2015.\n and were relegated to Europe/Africa Group III in 2015.\n\nGroup III \n Venue: Tere Tennis Center, Tallinn, Estonia (indoor hard)\n Dates: 5–8 February\n\nThe twelve teams were divided into four pools of three teams. The four pool winners took part in play-offs to determine the two nations advancing to Group II for 2015.\n\nPools\n\nPlay-offs \n\n and advanced to Europe/Africa Group II in 2015.\n\nReferences \n\n Fed Cup Result, 2014 Europe/Africa Group I\n Fed Cup Result, 2014 Europe/Africa Group II\n Fed Cup Result, 2014 Europe/Africa Group III\n\nExternal links \n Fed Cup website\n\n \nInternational sports competitions in Budapest\nTennis tournaments in Hungary\nSport in Šiauliai\nTennis tournaments in Lithuania\nSports competitions in Tallinn\nTennis tournaments in Estonia\n2000s in Budapest\n21st century in Tallinn\nFebruary 2014 sports events in Europe\nApril 2014 sports events in Europe"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.",
"Which tournaments did he play in Europe?",
"WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship,"
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | Which tournaments did he win in 2011? | 4 | Which tournaments did Kaymer win in 2011? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"This page details tournament performances pertaining to Tiger Woods.\n\nFor a list of his career achievements see List of career achievements by Tiger Woods. All tournaments are PGA Tour tournaments unless otherwise stated.\n\n1992\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nNotes\nParticipated in his first PGA Tour event at the Nissan Los Angeles Open. Woods did not make the cut, which was at 1 under-par. He played on February 27 and February 28, and was 16 years and 59 days old when he first played on the PGA Tour.\n\n1993\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n1994\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nNotes\n\nShot his first under-par round in a PGA Tour event at the Buick Classic. Woods shot a 70 (−1).\n\n1995\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nNotes\n\nMade his first cut in a PGA Tour event at The Masters. Woods was the highest finishing amateur at the event. He was also the highest finishing amateur at the Motorola Western Open.\n\n1996\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nNotes\nWoods debuted as a professional at the Greater Milwaukee Open on September 1, 1996. He did not earn money before then due to his amateur status.\nHighest finishing amateur at The Open Championship. This was also the last event Woods played in as an amateur. \nTurned professional in August 1996. In his first event as a professional, Woods finished tied for 60th at the Greater Milwaukee Open.\nWon his first title on the PGA Tour at the Las Vegas Invitational which was a five-round event. Woods won the Walt Disney World/Oldsmobile Classic two weeks later which is the first four-round event that he won.\n\n1997\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nNotes\nWon his first major at the 1997 Masters. He won at the age of 21 years and 104 days old making him the youngest Masters winner ever. He also set the scoring record in the Masters by shooting a 270 (−18).\n\n1998\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n1999\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2000\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2001\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2002\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2003\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2004\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2005\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2006\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2007\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2008\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2009\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2010\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n*Because Woods withdrew from The Players Championship after having made the cut, it counts as a cut made.\n\n2011\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2012\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2013\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2013−14\n\nTournaments\n\n*Because Woods withdrew from The Honda Classic after having made the cut, it counts as a cut made.\n\nSummary\n\n2014−15\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2015−16\nWoods missed the entire season recovering from surgery.\n\nSummary\n\n2016−17\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2017−18\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2018−19\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\n2019−20\n\nTournaments\n\nJCo-sanctioned by the Japan Golf Tour\n\nSummary\n\n2020−21\n\nTournaments\n\nSummary\n\nOther PGA Tour\n\nPerformance at the WGC-Match Play\nThe WGC-Match Play is one of the annual World Golf Championships.\n\nNote: Switched to three rounds of group play followed by 16 player knockout in 2015.\n\nPerformance at the PGA Grand Slam of Golf\nThe PGA Grand Slam of Golf was the world's most exclusive golf tournament. It was an annual off-season golf tournament contested by the year's winners of the four major championships of regular men's golf, which are the Masters Tournament, the U.S. Open, The Open Championship (British Open), and the PGA Championship.\n\nThe event was match play in 1998 and 1999. It was stroke play in all other years. Woods won in seven consecutive appearances.\n\nPerformance at the World Challenge\nThe World Challenge is an off-season tournament which is hosted by Woods. It is played in December.\n\nEuropean Tour\nWoods first tournament win as a professional on the European Tour was at the Johnnie Walker Classic in 1998. He did not earn any money before that due to his amateur status. World Golf Championships and major events (all British Opens and U.S.-based majors since 1998) are also considered European Tour events but they are covered in the PGA Tour section.\n\nWoods is not a European Tour member and therefore does not qualify to count his winnings towards the career money list. He is third on the all-time wins list.\n\nTournaments\n\nAsCo-sanctioned by the Asian Tour\nAuCo-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia\nSCo-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour\n\nSummary\n\nNote: Woods' 1997 Masters win is included here but not the money earned.\n*Those tournaments listed above.\n^Those majors and WGCs that are also official PGA Tour events.\n\nJapan Golf Tour\nWoods has participated in six events on the Japan Golf Tour. He has played in the Casio World Open once, the Dunlop Phoenix Tournament four times, and the Zozo Championship once (an event co-sanctioned by the PGA Tour).\n\nTournaments\n\nPCo-sanctioned by the PGA Tour\n\nSummary\n\nSource\n\nAsian Tour\n\nECo-sanctioned by the European Tour\nSCo-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour\nACo-sanctioned by the PGA Tour of Australasia\n\nSummary\n\nPGA Tour of Australasia\n\nECo-sanctioned by the European Tour\nACo-sanctioned by the Asian Tour\nSCo-sanctioned by the Sunshine Tour\n\nSummary\n\nUnofficial money events earning OWGR points\nAll tournaments listed above were official money events on one or more tours (unless noted) and earned Official World Golf Ranking (OWGR) points except the 1997 Asian Honda Classic, which did not carry OWGR points. Woods competed in other events that were tour-sanctioned, earned unofficial money, and earned OWGR points. These were:\n1998 Cisco World Match Play Championship (2nd place, US$150,000)\n1998 Million Dollar Challenge (2nd place, US$250,000)\nAll World Challenge events beginning in 2010\n\nTeam events\n\nRyder Cup\nAll records are in Win–Loss–Tie format.\n\nPresidents Cup\nAll records are in Win–Loss–Tie format.\n\nNotes and references\nAll information is from golfstats.com and pgatour.com.\n\nWoods, Tiger\nTiger Woods",
"The Great Triumvirate, in a golfing context, refers to the three leading British golfers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Harry Vardon, John Henry Taylor, and James Braid. The trio combined to win The Open Championship 16 times in the 21 tournaments held between 1894 and 1914; Vardon won six times with Braid and Taylor winning five apiece. In the five tournaments in this span the triumvirate did not win, one or more of them finished runner-up.\n\nOpen Championship – other winners 1894–1914\n\nReferences\n\nGolf terminology\nBritish male golfers"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.",
"Which tournaments did he play in Europe?",
"WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship,",
"Which tournaments did he win in 2011?",
"In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title"
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | Did he have any problems in 2011? | 5 | Did Kaymer have any problems in 2011? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | false | [
"Hilbert's twenty-fourth problem is a mathematical problem that was not published as part of the list of 23 problems known as Hilbert's problems but was included in David Hilbert's original notes. The problem asks for a criterion of simplicity in mathematical proofs and the development of a proof theory with the power to prove that a given proof is the simplest possible.\n\nThe 24th problem was rediscovered by German historian Rüdiger Thiele in 2000, noting that Hilbert did not include the 24th problem in the lecture presenting Hilbert's problems or any published texts. Hilbert's friends and fellow mathematicians Adolf Hurwitz and Hermann Minkowski were closely involved in the project but did not have any knowledge of this problem.\n\nThis is the full text from Hilbert's notes given in Rüdiger Thiele's paper. The section was translated by Rüdiger Thiele.\n\nIn 2002, Thiele and Larry Wos published an article on Hilbert's twenty-four problem with a discussion about its relation to various issues in automated reasoning, logic, and mathematics.\n\nReferences\n\n24",
"Ángel Rodríguez Campillo (born 20 May 1985 in Elche, Province of Alicante, Spain) is a professional Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. He raced in the 125cc and 250cc World championships between and . He currently competes in the RFME Superstock 1000 Championship, aboard a Kawasaki ZX-10R.\n\nRodríguez started racing in pocketbikes. He competed in the Spanish Championship, where he won the title in 2001 again riders like Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, Chaz Davies, Marco Simoncelli. He also made his debut in the 125cc World Championship in 2000. In 2001 he rode for Aspar Team with his CEV Aprilia bike. In 2001 he done some good race including a sixth place in Jerez and a great race in Phillip Island. In this race he fight for the victory until last lap, but a rider crashed in front of him while Angel was third and he crashed.\n \nIn 2002 he continued with Aspar Team and he improved his qualification results starting some races in second row, but he had some crashes and some mechanical failures and he did not finish many races. After these bad results, Angel and the Aspar team decided to finish the contract, but they were together again in the last round of the 250cc class in Valencia.\n\nIn 2004 he rode for Derbi being Jorge Lorenzo teammate, but Angel did not have good results. He was in the same team as Jorge Lorenzo but with a very different bike - older and with many mechanical problems in free practice, qualys and races, this is why Angel not finish many races in the 2004 season.\n\nIn 2005 and 2006 he improved his results in the category doing the fastest lap of the race in Australia 2005 with Team Toth bike, this was incredible because before Angel arrived to this team they did not get any points that season.\n\nIn 2007 he went to CEV, doing a great season in his first season in a 600cc bike. He finished third due to an injury.\n\nIn 2008, Rodríguez became the 600cc Spanish National Champion winning all races and doing all poles of the championship and he became European Champion, too, winning this championship against some riders who rode in World SSP. He also made three World Supersport appearances with his CEV bike doing 2 top 10 in 3 races. After this amazing season, some World SSP and World SBK were interested in signing him and also Aspar Team had some conversations with Angel for race in 2009 MotoGP season, but due to sponsors problems he did not sign with any of this teams.\n\nIn 2009 he won the three races and he did the three poles in Spanish championship, but after that he stopped racing due to problems with RFME and for not having support of sponsors to be back at the world championship.\n\nIn 2012 he was back in World Moto2 but after the first races he decided to finish the contract with his team because they did not have the equipment for fighting for the top 5.\n\nAfter that Angel wemt to FIM CEV and rode with the old Suzuki, with amazing results including one pole and one victory and earning the track record in Alcarras Circuit.\n\nIn 2016 and 2017 he has finished third in CEV having good results in the category with many podiums and being one of references of the category.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nGrand Prix motorcycle racing\n\nBy season\n\nRaces by year\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nSupersport World Championship\n\nRaces by year\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\n1985 births\nLiving people\nSportspeople from Elche\nSportspeople from the Valencian Community\nSpanish motorcycle racers\n125cc World Championship riders\n250cc World Championship riders\nSupersport World Championship riders\nMoto2 World Championship riders\nDoping cases in motorcycle racing"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.",
"Which tournaments did he play in Europe?",
"WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship,",
"Which tournaments did he win in 2011?",
"In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title",
"Did he have any problems in 2011?",
"I don't know."
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | How did he become the number one ranked palyer? | 6 | How did Kaymer become the number one ranked palyer? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"\"Kong Foo Sing\" is a song by Australian rock band Regurgitator. The song was released in April 1996 as the second single and first single from the band's debut studio album Tu-Plang. The single peaked at number 33 in Australia. The song ranked at number 15 on Triple J's Hottest 100 in 1996.\n\nBen Ely said \"the song was about how Quan Yeomans had sent Janet from Spiderbait a box of the Kong Foo Sing fortune cookies in an effort to get her to go out with him.\"\n\nReception\nIn 2019, Tyler Jenke from The Brag ranked Regurgitator's best songs, with \"Kong Foo Sing\" coming it at number 2. Jenke said \"An ode to the fortune cookie, 'Kong Foo Sing' managed to see Regurgitator become something of a household name in the world of alt-rock. Pairing catchy lyrics, samples from kung-fu films, and a crushing rhythm section, there was no doubting that this one would go on to become one of their most successful moments.\"\n\nTrack listings\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n \n\n1996 singles\n1995 songs\nRegurgitator songs\nSongs written by Quan Yeomans\nSong recordings produced by Magoo (Australian producer)\nWarner Music Australasia singles",
"The WTA Rankings are the Women's Tennis Association's (WTA) merit-based system for determining the rankings in women's tennis. In doubles, the top-ranked team is the pair who, over the previous 52 weeks, has gathered the most WTA Rankings points. Points are awarded based on how far a team advances in tournaments and the category of those tournaments. The WTA has used a computerised system for determining doubles rankings since 1984. \n\nThe current number 1 doubles player is Kateřina Siniaková of Czechia.\n\nWTA No. 1 ranked doubles players \n\nThe source for the following table through the week of , is the 2012 WTA Tour Official Guide, page 172.\n\nKey\n\nWeeks at No. 1\n\nTotal\n\nConsecutive\n\nWeeks at No. 1 leaders timeline \n\nCurrent record in bold.\n\nYear-end No. 1 players\n\nPlayers who became No. 1 without having won a Grand Slam\n\nWeeks at No. 1 by country \n\n* Belarusian Natasha Zvereva spent one week at number one while playing for the Soviet Union\n\nSee also \n\n World number 1 ranked female tennis players (includes rankings before 1975)\n ITF World Champions\n List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players\n List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players\n List of ATP number 1 ranked doubles tennis players\n Current WTA Rankings\n List of WTA players who were ranked number 5 or higher but never number 1\n Top ten ranked female tennis players\n Top ten ranked female tennis players (1921–1974)\n List of highest ranked tennis players per country\n\nReferences \n\n1\n1"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.",
"Which tournaments did he play in Europe?",
"WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship,",
"Which tournaments did he win in 2011?",
"In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title",
"Did he have any problems in 2011?",
"I don't know.",
"How did he become the number one ranked palyer?",
"Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world,"
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 7 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article aside from Kaymer overtaking Westwood as the number one golfer in the world? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Martin Kaymer",
"2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win",
"What happened in 2011?",
"Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member;",
"What did he do instead?",
"He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.",
"Which tournaments did he play in Europe?",
"WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship,",
"Which tournaments did he win in 2011?",
"In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title",
"Did he have any problems in 2011?",
"I don't know.",
"How did he become the number one ranked palyer?",
"Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world,",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways."
] | C_16346cfd0f6f4d12bd552de140a17f8e_1 | Did this work? | 8 | Did Kaymer's undergoing a swing change work? | Martin Kaymer | Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well. In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings. After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters. After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake." The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer. In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Fredrik Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four. CANNOTANSWER | Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, | Martin Kaymer ( ; born 28 December 1984) is a German professional golfer. A winner of two major championships, he was also the No. 1 ranked golfer in the Official World Golf Ranking for eight weeks in 2011.
Kaymer achieved his first major victory at the 2010 PGA Championship, which he won over Bubba Watson in a 3-hole playoff. That same year, he was also awarded the European Tour's Harry Vardon Trophy for winning the Race to Dubai. He also won the 2011 WGC-HSBC Champions.
Kaymer is also hailed for sinking a putt on the 18th hole at Medinah Country Club on the final day of the 2012 Ryder Cup, which helped win the cup for Europe and overturned a four-point deficit against the United States at the start of the final day's play.
In May 2014, Kaymer won The Players Championship, the flagship event of the PGA Tour. A month later, he led each round of the 2014 U.S. Open and won his second major by eight strokes.
Early life
Kaymer was born on 28 December 1984 in Düsseldorf, West Germany, he turned professional at age 20 in 2005 and is a member of the European Tour.
Early professional career
Kaymer picked up his first professional win at the age of 20 as an amateur at the Central German Classic in 2005 on the third-tier EPD Tour. He shot a −19 (67-64-66=197) to win the tournament by a margin of five strokes.
Kaymer played full-time on the EPD Tour in 2006 from February to August. He played in 14 tournaments and picked up five victories. He finished in the top 10 in all but two of the tournaments. Kaymer won the Order of Merit on the EPD Tour in 2006 by earning €26,664.
Kaymer shot a round of 59 (−13) in the second round of the Habsburg Classic. This was his scorecard:
Due to his success on the EPD Tour, Kaymer received an invitation to compete in and then won his first event as a professional on the Challenge Tour, the Vodafone Challenge in his native Germany. He played in eight events from August to October winning again a month later at the Open des Volcans in France. He ended up finishing 4th on the Order of Merit list despite playing in only eight events. In all he earned €93,321. He finished in the top 5 in six tournaments, and his worst finish was a 13th-place finish. Due to Kaymer's success on the Challenge Tour, he earned a European Tour card for 2007.
Professional career
Summary
Kaymer has won 11 tournaments on the European Tour including four in 2010 to win for the first time the Race to Dubai, formerly the Order of Merit. Among those wins was the PGA Championship in the United States, which made him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to win a major championship. He also won the WGC-HSBC Champions to become the 10th player to win both a major title and a World Golf Championship event. In 2014, he won his second major championship, the U.S. Open at Pinehurst.
2007: European Tour debut & Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year
Kaymer made his debut on the European Tour in 2007 at the UBS Hong Kong Open, but he failed to make the cut. He missed the cut in his first five events of the season. In March, Kaymer made his first cut of the season at the Singapore Masters; he finished in a tie for 20th place. In his first seven events of the season, he only made one cut. All of those events were played outside of Europe.
Kaymer found immediate success once he started playing in Europe again. He finished in a tie for 15th at the Madeira Island Open, which was the season's first Tour event played in Europe. The following week, he finished in a tie for 3rd at the Portuguese Open. He made seven consecutive cuts from to . During that streak, his worst finish was a tie for 35th and he recorded five top 25 finishes.
From 7 June to 9 September, Kaymer played in nine tournaments but only made two cuts. In the two tournaments where he made the cut, he did very well. Kaymer finished in a tie for 7th at the Open de France. Seven weeks later, he finished in a tie for 2nd at the Scandinavian Masters.
Kaymer played in six of the last eight events of the season. He made the cut in all six of those events. On 2007 at the Portugal Masters, Kaymer shot a first round of 61 (−11). This round tied the lowest round of the 2007 European Tour season. It was also the new course record at the Oceânico Victoria Clube de Golfe. He went on to finish in a tie for 7th. Two weeks later at the year-ending Volvo Masters, he finished in 6th place. The Volvo Masters had one of the strongest fields on tour in 2007. He earned €140,000 for his 6th-place finish, which was Kaymer's largest payout from a tournament to that time.
Kaymer earned €754,691 for the 2007 season, finishing as the highest-ranked rookie on the Order of Merit, in 41st position, and won the Sir Henry Cotton Rookie of the Year Award. He is the first German to win the award. Kaymer recorded five top 10s on the season. These performances took him into the top 100 of the Official World Golf Ranking for the first time. In November 2007 he moved into the top 75, overtaking Bernhard Langer to become the highest-ranked German golfer.
On 2 November, Kaymer signed with Sportyard, a sports management company based in Sweden. He represented Germany at the 2007 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with four-time European Tour winner Alex Čejka; they tied for sixth place.
2008–2009: Continued success
Kaymer started 2008 by winning his maiden European Tour event with a wire-to-wire victory at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship. This achievement lifted him to 34th in the world rankings, making him the only player in the top 50 under the age of 25. It also secured his entry into the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship and the Masters. Two weeks after winning the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship, he finished second in the Dubai Desert Classic. He finished the tournament with birdie-birdie-eagle but world number one Tiger Woods topped him by one stroke. Kaymer moved up to a high of 21st in the world rankings due to his runner-up finish.
Kaymer picked up his second victory of the year at the BMW International Open, becoming the first German to win the event in its 20-year history. He held a six stroke lead going into the final round but then shot a 75 (+3) which resulted in Kaymer going to a playoff with Anders Hansen. Kaymer birdied the first playoff hole to win the tournament.
Kaymer came close to picking up his third win of the year at the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship, but he fell to Robert Karlsson in a three-man playoff that also included Ross Fisher. Kaymer recorded another runner-up finish at the Volvo Masters, finishing two strokes behind winner Søren Kjeldsen. Kaymer earned €1,794,500 in 2008 and finished 8th on the Order of Merit. Kaymer narrowly missed selection for the 2008 Ryder Cup, but European captain Nick Faldo invited Kaymer to assist the European side in a non-playing capacity which Kaymer accepted. Kaymer represented his country at the 2008 Omega Mission Hills World Cup with Alex Čejka. The pair finished in fifth.
In 2009, Kaymer almost defended his title at the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship but finished in a tie for second, one stroke behind winner Paul Casey. He continued his success in the Middle East by finishing in a tie for fourth at the Dubai Desert Classic. Kaymer won his third European Tour event in July, the Open de France Alstom. He defeated Lee Westwood on the first hole of a playoff when Westwood hit his approach shot into the water. The win moved Kaymer into the top 100 of the European Tour Career Earnings list.
He also won the following week at the Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club near Glasgow, for his fourth career win. He came from a shot behind on the final day with a round of 2-under 69 to win by two strokes. The win elevated him to 11th in the Official World Golf Ranking. The week after that, Kaymer finished T-34 at the Open Championship, which was his best finish in a major to that time. He bettered this when he moved through the final round field to finish in a tie for sixth at the PGA Championship.
Kaymer suffered an injury in a go-kart accident and missed September and October. He returned to the final stages of the Race to Dubai on the European Tour and finished the season ranked third.
2010: PGA Championship win
In January 2010, Kaymer won the Abu Dhabi Golf Championship by one shot over Ian Poulter. After missing the cut at the Masters, Kaymer finished tied for eighth at the U.S. Open and tied for seventh at The Open Championship, after starting the final round in third place.
On 15 August in Wisconsin, Kaymer won the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits for his first major title. Finishing regulation play in a two-way tie at 11 under par, he defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole aggregate playoff.
Kaymer was a member of the winning European Ryder Cup team in 2010. He won both four-balls (partnered with Westwood and Poulter), halved his foursome and lost his singles match. A week later he won the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St Andrews with Danny Willett coming in three strokes behind. He was the first player since Tiger Woods in 2006 to win three successive tournaments in a year and the first European to achieve this since Nick Faldo in 1989. The win took him to a career high of third in the Official World Golf Ranking. Kaymer and Graeme McDowell shared the European Tour Golfer of the Year award.
2011: Becomes world's No. 1 ranked player & first WGC win
Entering the 2011 season, Kaymer turned down a chance to become a full PGA Tour member; he had gained exempt status with his win in the PGA Championship. He stated he would concentrate on the European Tour for 2011, but would play several U.S. events as well.
In January, Kaymer claimed his third Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship title in four years and displaced Tiger Woods as number two in the world rankings.
After his runner-up finish at the 2011 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, Kaymer overtook Lee Westwood as the number one golfer in the world, making him only the second German (after Bernhard Langer) to be the top-ranked golfer in the world. At the time he was the second youngest to reach world number one behind Tiger Woods, soon surpassed by Rory McIlroy in March 2012, who gained the top ranking at age 22. In April, he relinquished his number one ranking after eight weeks to Westwood, who won the Indonesian Masters.
After reaching the number one ranking, Kaymer decided to undergo a swing change to be able to move the ball both ways. Frustrated with his disappointing results at the Masters, Kaymer looked to better shape a draw, a shot he thought he needed to be able to contend at Augusta. Kaymer missed the cut at the Masters for the fourth time in 2011 and later admitted that changing his swing for Augusta was a "big mistake". The rest of 2011 was relatively inconsistent for Kaymer.
In November 2011, Kaymer won his first WGC title at the WGC-HSBC Champions event in Shanghai, China. He entered the final round trailing Freddie Jacobson by five strokes, then shot a final round 9-under 63 to take the title by three strokes from Jacobson. After parring his opening six holes, Kaymer birdied nine of the remaining twelve, with four straight birdies at the start of the back nine. This was the biggest comeback win ever in the history of the WGC events, and the lowest final round by a WGC winner, topping a 64 set by Hunter Mahan in 2010. Kaymer became the tenth player to have won both a major and a WGC event, and the win took him back to world number four.
2012–2013: Winning the Ryder Cup with Europe among struggles
Kaymer struggled for most of the 2012 season dropping to 32nd in the world golf rankings. Kaymer had only 6 top tens with no worldwide victories. During the 2012 Ryder Cup, European Captain José María Olazábal played the struggling Kaymer in only one team match before the Sunday singles matches. The European team completed a historic comeback from 10–6 down at the start of the final day. Kaymer won his singles match of the Ryder Cup against Steve Stricker by one hole. His putt on the 18th at that point assured that Europe would at least retain the cup. Shortly afterwards Italy's Francesco Molinari halved the final match clinching the win for Europe and thus completed the historic comeback. After the clinching putt, Kaymer said that Langer's miss at Kiawah in 1991 slipped through his mind.
2013 was another inconsistent year for Kaymer with no worldwide victories. Kaymer decided to join the PGA Tour for the 2013 season.
2014: PGA Tour success and U.S. Open win
In May 2014, Kaymer earned a wire-to-wire win at The Players Championship in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, finishing −13 for a one-shot victory over runner-up Jim Furyk. He started the week with a course record-tying 63 in the first round at the Stadium Course of TPC at Sawgrass, joining Fred Couples (1992), Greg Norman (1994), and Roberto Castro (2013). He played the front nine (his second nine) in 29 (−7). This was the first time ever, back or front nine, that a player shot below 30 through nine holes at The Players. The final round was delayed due to bad weather while Kaymer was playing the 14th hole. He holed a difficult par putt (with a huge downhill left-to-right-break) on the 17th green to retain his one-stroke lead. His approach shot on 18 was short of the green but he holed the winning putt for par in near darkness and avoided a three-hole playoff. He became the fourth European to win this event (Sandy Lyle in 1987, Sergio García in 2008, and Henrik Stenson in 2009), and is the fourth to win a major, a World Golf Championship, and The Players, joining Tiger Woods, Adam Scott, and Phil Mickelson. Kaymer earned a winner's share of $1.8 million, the largest of his career, and re-entered the top 50 in the Official World Golf Ranking, rising 33 places from 61st to 28th.
In June, Kaymer started the U.S. Open at Pinehurst with consecutive rounds of 65 (−5) to set a U.S. Open record for 36 holes (130). He finished at 271 (−9), eight strokes ahead of runners-up Rickie Fowler and Erik Compton, and became the first player in history to win those two championships back to back. (Woods also held both titles concurrently, winning the U.S. Open in 2000 and The Players in March 2001; it moved to May in 2007.) With the win, Kaymer gained exempt status on the PGA Tour through 2019 and rose to eleventh in the world rankings. With his U.S. Open victory in 2014, Martin became the first non-British European golfer ever to win the U.S. Open, and one of few players to win two majors under the age of thirty.
In October 2014, Kaymer won the PGA Grand Slam of Golf, the annual 36-hole event featuring the year's four major champions.
2015 season
The season began with Kaymer's appearance at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Golf Championship. With scores of 64, 67, and 65, he held to a six-shot lead after three rounds. This extended to a ten-shot lead after five holes in the final round. Kaymer found trouble in the bunkers, resulting in a round of 75 and a fall to third place behind Frenchman Gary Stal, who secured his first European Tour victory, and world number one Rory McIlroy. Speaking after the round, Kaymer told the media that he was "in shock" at the result: "I'm surprised and shocked," the German said. "I don't really know how to put it into words. It was very, very surprising today. It will take me a few days to reflect on this. I don't think I played that badly. I started well and just hit two drives which led to two bad holes."
In August, after failing to qualify for the FedEx Cup Playoffs, Kaymer lost his PGA Tour status for the 2015–16 season. He only played in 13 events, two less than the minimum for PGA Tour membership.
In September, Kaymer held a three-shot lead at the Open d'Italia with nine holes to play. But a poor back nine saw him fall into a playoff with Rikard Karlberg. He was defeated with a birdie on the second extra playoff hole.
2019 season
Looking to end a five-year winless drought, Kaymer took charge of the Memorial Tournament in June 2019, after three rounds of 67-68-66, building a two stroke advantage after 54 holes. He soon doubled that during the early part of the final round, but faltered on the back nine, including finding the water on the 15th at Muirfield Village. Kaymer had to settle for a third-place finish, as Patrick Cantlay stormed through to take the title.
2020 season
Kaymer regained form in the European Tour 2020 season. He held a one shot lead with two holes to play at the ISPS Handa UK Championship, but a bogey on the par-5 17th at The Belfry, cost him a place in a playoff and seen him finish in a tie for third-place.
One week later, Kaymer was in contention again to claim his first victory in over 6 years when he came up short to John Catlin at the Estrella Damm N.A. Andalucía Masters. He finished solo second.
In October, he finished in a tie for fifth place at the Italian Open.
2021 season
In April, Kaymer was tied for the lead after 54 holes at the Austrian Golf Open. A final round 70 saw him finish in solo third place; three shots short of the playoff between John Catlin and Maximilian Kieffer.
In June, Kaymer shot a final round 64 to finish second at the BMW International Open, two shots behind Viktor Hovland.
In September, Kaymer served as a non-playing vice-captain for Team Europe at the 2021 Ryder Cup.
Amateur wins
2003 Austrian Amateur Open Championship
2004 German Amateur Closed Championship
Professional wins (23)
PGA Tour wins (3)
PGA Tour playoff record (1–0)
European Tour wins (11)
European Tour playoff record (3–2)
Sunshine Tour wins (1)
Challenge Tour wins (2)
EPD Tour wins (6)
Other wins (2)
Other playoff record (1–0)
Major championships
Wins (2)
1Defeated Bubba Watson in a three-hole playoff: Kaymer (4-2-5=11), Watson (3-3-6=12)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order in 2020.
CUT = missed the half-way cut
"T" = tied
NT = No tournament due to COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
Most consecutive cuts made – 10 (2015 Open – 2018 Masters)
Longest streak of top-10s – 3 (2010 U.S. Open – 2010 PGA)
The Players Championship
Wins (1)
Results timeline
CUT = missed the halfway cut
"T" indicates a tie for a place.
World Golf Championships
Wins (1)
Results timeline
Results not in chronological order before 2015.
QF, R16, R32, R64 = Round in which player lost in match play
"T" = tied
Note that the HSBC Champions did not become a WGC event until 2009.
European Tour professional career summary
* As of the 2019 season
Team appearances
Amateur
European Amateur Team Championship (representing Germany): 2003, 2005
Eisenhower Trophy (representing Germany): 2004
St Andrews Trophy (representing the Continent of Europe): 2004
Professional
World Cup (representing Germany): 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2018
Ryder Cup (representing Europe): 2010 (winners), 2012 (winners), 2014 (winners), 2016
See also
2006 Challenge Tour graduates
List of golfers with most European Tour wins
List of men's major championships winning golfers
References
External links
German male golfers
European Tour golfers
PGA Tour golfers
Winners of men's major golf championships
Ryder Cup competitors for Europe
Olympic golfers of Germany
Golfers at the 2016 Summer Olympics
Laureus World Sports Awards winners
Sportspeople from Düsseldorf
1984 births
Living people | true | [
"Walton v Independent Living Organisation [2003] EWCA Civ 199 is a UK labour law case regarding the National Minimum Wage Act 1998.\n\nFacts\nMiss Julie Walton was a care worker, who looked after Miss E Jones, who had epilepsy but was a relatively easy client. She did washing, ironing, shopping and meals. Miss Walton was required to remain at work for 24 hours a day, and did three days a week. She was paid £31.40 a day and got allowance for meals and sleeping was free when she was with Miss Jones. The National Minimum Wage Team of the Inland Revenue contacted the company about a complaint. The employment agency sent in Miss Butler to do estimates about Miss Walton's hours of work and concluded her tasks took 6 hours and 50 minutes a day. Ms Walton agreed with this, and signed an agreement that this was in fact her hours of work.\n\nTribunal held that her time was ‘unmeasured’, and that the estimation was an agreement of time for the purpose of NMWR 1999 r 28, even though her whole pay was expressed on a daily basis. Therefore, she was paid £4.60 which was over the minimum wage.\n\nJudgment\nAldous LJ upheld the Tribunal. They had come to an agreement about the average hours of work. Arden LJ said it was a question of fact whether the worker did ‘only stand and wait’ and here she did not, and was able to do something entirely unrelated while at work. Jacob J concurred.\n\nSee also\n\nUK labour law\n\nNotes\n\nUnited Kingdom labour case law\nUnited Kingdom wages case law\nCourt of Appeal (England and Wales) cases\n2003 in case law\n2003 in British law",
"The Migraine Disability Assessment Test (MIDAS) is a test used by doctors to determine how severely migraines affect a patient's life. Patients are asked questions about the frequency and duration of their headaches, as well as how often these headaches limited their ability to participate in activities at work, at school, or at home.\n\nThe test was evaluated by the professional journal Neurology in 2001; it was found to be both reliable and valid.\n\nQuestions\nThe MIDAS contains the following questions:\n\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss work or school because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last 3 months was your productivity at work or school reduced by half or more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 1 where you missed work or school.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you not do household work because of your headaches?\n How many days in the last three months was your productivity in household work reduced by half of more because of your headaches? (Do not include days you counted in question 3 where you did not do household work.)\n On how many days in the last 3 months did you miss family, social or leisure activities because of your headaches?\n\nThe patient's score consists of the total of these five questions. Additionally, there is a section for patients to share with their doctors:\n\nWhat your Physician will need to know about your headache:\n\nA. On how many days in the last 3 months did you have a headache?\n(If a headache lasted more than 1 day, count each day.)\t\n\nB. On a scale of 0 - 10, on average how painful were these headaches? \n(where 0 = no pain at all and 10 = pain as bad as it can be.)\n\nScoring\nOnce scored, the test gives the patient an idea of how debilitating his/her migraines are based on this scale:\n\n0 to 5, MIDAS Grade I, Little or no disability \n\n6 to 10, MIDAS Grade II, Mild disability\n\n11 to 20, MIDAS Grade III, Moderate disability\n\n21+, MIDAS Grade IV, Severe disability\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMigraine Treatment\n\nMigraine"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar"
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | What happened in 1991 | 1 | What happened to D'Angelo in 1991 | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | false | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives"
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | When was brown sugar released | 2 | When was brown sugar by D'Angelo released | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | false | [
"\"Stay with Me\" is a country music song written by J.P. Pennington and originally recorded by country pop band Exile in 1978. In 1979, the song was released as a single by the different artists. The first version, recorded by Dandy, reached number 57 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. The song was most notably recorded by Dave and Sugar and Family Brown, who both reached the top ten of the country charts in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. \n\nWhile not originally released as a single when recorded, Exile's version was later released in 1985.\n\nChart performance\n\nDandy\n\nDave & Sugar\n\nFamily Brown\n\nExile\n\nReferences\n\n1979 singles\n1985 singles\nDave & Sugar songs\nExile (American band) songs\nFamily Brown songs\nRCA Records singles\nSongs written by J.P. Pennington\n1978 songs",
"\"Brown Sugar\" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter duo Ider for their debut album, Emotional Education. It was released on 1 February 2019 as the fourth single from the album.\n\nBackground and composition\n\"Brown Sugar\" is a rhythm and blues-inspired track, which Marwick said was influenced by R&B artists such as Kendrick Lamar. Ider used a Roland synthesiser heavily throughout the track. They describe the track as \"an empowering song about sex.\"\n\nMusic video\nThe \"live\" music video for \"Brown Sugar\" was released on 31 January 2019. The video features Ider performing the song live, in a dark room with red lighting. The video was directed by frequent Ider collaborator Lewis Knaggs.\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download\n \"Brown Sugar\" – 3:36\n\nCredits and personnel\n Megan Markwick – Vocals, synth, percussion\n Lily Somerville – Vocals, keyboard\n Ben Scott – drums\n Rodaidh McDonald – production\n\nReferences\n\nIder (band) songs\n2019 singles\n2019 songs"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995."
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | was it a success? | 3 | was the album Brown Sugar by D'Angelo a success? | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | true | [
"Sixteen ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Success, whilst another was planned:\n\n was a 34-gun ship, previously the French ship Jules. She was captured in 1650, renamed HMS Old Success in 1660 and sold in 1662.\n HMS Success was a 24-gun ship launched in 1655 as . She was renamed HMS Success in 1660 and was wrecked in 1680.\n was a 6-gun fireship purchased in 1672 that foundered in 1673.\n was a store hulk purchased in 1692 and sunk as a breakwater in 1707.\n was a 10-gun sloop purchased in 1709 that the French captured in 1710 off Lisbon.\n was a 24-gun storeship launched in 1709, hulked in 1730, and sold in 1748. \n was a 20-gun sixth rate launched in 1712, converted to a fireship in 1739, and sold in 1743.\n was a 14-gun sloop launched in 1736; her fate is unknown.\n was a 24-gun sixth rate launched in 1740 and broken up in 1779.\n was a 14-gun ketch launched in 1754. Her fate is unknown.\n was a 32-gun fifth rate launched in 1781 that the French captured in 1801 but that the British recaptured the same year. She became a convict ship in 1814 and was broken up in 1820.\n was a 3-gun gunvessel, previously in use as a barge. She was purchased in 1797 and sold in 1802.\n was a 28 gun sixth rate launched in 1825, and captained by James Stirling in his journey to Western Australia. She was used for harbour service from 1832 and was broken up 1849.\n HMS Success was to have been a wood screw sloop. She was ordered but not laid down and was cancelled in 1863.\n was a launched in 1901 and wrecked in 1914.\n HMS Success was an launched in 1918. She was transferred to the Royal Australian Navy in 1919 and was sold in 1937.\n was an S-class destroyer launched in 1943. She was transferred to the Royal Norwegian Navy later that year and renamed . She was broken up in 1959.\n\nSee also\n , two ships of the Royal Australian Navy.\n\nCitations and references\nCitations\n\nReferences\n \n\nRoyal Navy ship names",
"HMAS Success was an Admiralty destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built for the Royal Navy during World War I, the ship was not completed until 1919, and spent less than eight months in British service before being transferred to the RAN at the start of 1920. The destroyer's career was uneventful, with almost all of it spent in Australian waters. Success was decommissioned in 1930, and was sold for ship breaking in 1937.\n\nDesign and construction\n\nSuccess was built to the Admiralty design of the S-class destroyer, which was designed and built as part of the British emergency war programme. The destroyer had a displacement of 1,075 tons, a length of overall and between perpendiculars, and a beam of . The propulsion machinery consisted of three Yarrow boilers feeding Brown-Curtis turbines, which supplied to the ship's two propeller shafts. Success had a maximum speed of , and a range of at . The ship's company was made up of 6 officers and 93 sailors.\n\nThe destroyer's primary armament consisted of three QF 4-inch Mark IV guns. These were supplemented by a 2-pounder pom-pom, two 9.5-inch howitzer bomb throwers, five .303 inch machine guns (a mix of Lewis and Maxim guns), two twin 21-inch torpedo tube sets, two depth charge throwers, and two depth charge chutes.\n\nSuccess was laid down by William Doxford and Sons Limited at their Sunderland shipyard in 1917. The destroyer was launched on 29 June 1918, and completed on 15 April 1919. The ship was briefly commissioned into the Royal Navy in April 1919, but was quickly marked for transfer to the RAN, along with four sister ships. Success was commissioned into the RAN on 27 January 1920.\n\nOperational history\n\nSuccess and three of her sister ships sailed for Australia on 20 February, visiting ports in the Mediterranean, India, Singapore, and the Netherlands East Indies before reaching Sydney on 29 April. Success operated in Australian waters until 6 October 1921, when she was placed in reserve. The destroyer was reactivated on 1 December 1925. In late May 1926, Success visited Port Moresby.\n\nDecommissioning and fate\nSuccess paid off on 21 May 1930. She was sold to Penguins Limited for ship breaking in 1937.\n\nCitations\n\nReferences\n\nS-class destroyers (1917) of the Royal Australian Navy\nShips built on the River Wear\n1918 ships"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995.",
"was it a success?",
"Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit."
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | What happened in 1992 | 4 | What happened to the musician D'Angelo in 1992 | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | false | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995.",
"was it a success?",
"Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit.",
"What happened in 1992",
"I don't know."
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | What song was in brown sugar | 5 | What song was in brown sugar by D'Angelo? | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | true | [
"\"Stay with Me\" is a country music song written by J.P. Pennington and originally recorded by country pop band Exile in 1978. In 1979, the song was released as a single by the different artists. The first version, recorded by Dandy, reached number 57 of the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart. The song was most notably recorded by Dave and Sugar and Family Brown, who both reached the top ten of the country charts in the U.S. and Canada, respectively. \n\nWhile not originally released as a single when recorded, Exile's version was later released in 1985.\n\nChart performance\n\nDandy\n\nDave & Sugar\n\nFamily Brown\n\nExile\n\nReferences\n\n1979 singles\n1985 singles\nDave & Sugar songs\nExile (American band) songs\nFamily Brown songs\nRCA Records singles\nSongs written by J.P. Pennington\n1978 songs",
"\"Brown Sugar\" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter duo Ider for their debut album, Emotional Education. It was released on 1 February 2019 as the fourth single from the album.\n\nBackground and composition\n\"Brown Sugar\" is a rhythm and blues-inspired track, which Marwick said was influenced by R&B artists such as Kendrick Lamar. Ider used a Roland synthesiser heavily throughout the track. They describe the track as \"an empowering song about sex.\"\n\nMusic video\nThe \"live\" music video for \"Brown Sugar\" was released on 31 January 2019. The video features Ider performing the song live, in a dark room with red lighting. The video was directed by frequent Ider collaborator Lewis Knaggs.\n\nTrack listing\nDigital download\n \"Brown Sugar\" – 3:36\n\nCredits and personnel\n Megan Markwick – Vocals, synth, percussion\n Lily Somerville – Vocals, keyboard\n Ben Scott – drums\n Rodaidh McDonald – production\n\nReferences\n\nIder (band) songs\n2019 singles\n2019 songs"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995.",
"was it a success?",
"Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit.",
"What happened in 1992",
"I don't know.",
"What song was in brown sugar",
"R&B top-ten singles \"Brown Sugar\" and \"Cruisin"
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | What happened in 1995 | 6 | What happened to musician D'Angelo in 1995 | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | true | [
"Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, in Spanish Libro de los ejemplos del conde Lucanor y de Patronio (Book of the Examples of Count Lucanor and of Patronio), also commonly known as El Conde Lucanor, Libro de Patronio, or Libro de los ejemplos (original Old Castilian: Libro de los enxiemplos del Conde Lucanor et de Patronio), is one of the earliest works of prose in Castilian Spanish. It was first written in 1335.\n\nThe book is divided into four parts. The first and most well-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.\n\nTales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.\n\nPurpose and structure\n\nA didactic, moralistic purpose, which would color so much of the Spanish literature to follow (see Novela picaresca), is the mark of this book. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem (\"Some man has made me a proposition...\" or \"I fear that such and such person intends to...\") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are \"examples\" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.\n\nEach chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: \"And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses.\" A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.\n\nOrigin of stories and influence on later literature\nMany of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the proceeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.\n\nShakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, \"What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\".\n\nTale 32, \"What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth\" tells the story that Hans Christian Andersen made popular as The Emperor's New Clothes.\n\nStory 7, \"What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana\", a version of Aesop's The Milkmaid and Her Pail, was claimed by Max Müller to originate in the Hindu cycle Panchatantra.\n\nTale 2, \"What happened to a good Man and his Son, leading a beast to market,\" is the familiar fable The miller, his son and the donkey.\n\nIn 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name \"The Count Lucanor\". As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.\n\nThe stories\n\nThe book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English. James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.\n\n What Happened to a King and His Favorite \n What Happened to a Good Man and His Son \n How King Richard of England Leapt into the Sea against the Moors\n What a Genoese Said to His Soul When He Was about to Die \n What Happened to a Fox and a Crow Who Had a Piece of Cheese in His Beak\n How the Swallow Warned the Other Birds When She Saw Flax Being Sown \n What Happened to a Woman Named Truhana \n What Happened to a Man Whose Liver Had to Be Washed \n What Happened to Two Horses Which Were Thrown to the Lion \n What Happened to a Man Who on Account of Poverty and Lack of Other Food Was Eating Bitter Lentils \n What Happened to a Dean of Santiago de Compostela and Don Yllán, the Grand Master of Toledo\n What Happened to the Fox and the Rooster \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Hunting Partridges \n The Miracle of Saint Dominick When He Preached against the Usurer \n What Happened to Lorenzo Suárez at the Siege of Seville \n The Reply that count Fernán González Gave to His Relative Núño Laynes \n What Happened to a Very Hungry Man Who Was Half-heartedly Invited to Dinner \n What Happened to Pero Meléndez de Valdés When He Broke His Leg \n What Happened to the Crows and the Owls \n What Happened to a King for Whom a Man Promised to Perform Alchemy \n What Happened to a Young King and a Philosopher to Whom his Father Commended Him \n What Happened to the Lion and the Bull \n How the Ants Provide for Themselves \n What Happened to the King Who Wanted to Test His Three Sons \n What Happened to the Count of Provence and How He Was Freed from Prison by the Advice of Saladin\n What Happened to the Tree of Lies \n What Happened to an Emperor and to Don Alvarfáñez Minaya and Their Wives \n What Happened in Granada to Don Lorenzo Suárez Gallinato When He Beheaded the Renegade Chaplain \n What Happened to a Fox Who Lay down in the Street to Play Dead \n What Happened to King Abenabet of Seville and Ramayquía His Wife \n How a Cardinal Judged between the Canons of Paris and the Friars Minor \n What Happened to the King and the Tricksters Who Made Cloth \n What Happened to Don Juan Manuel's Saker Falcon and an Eagle and a Heron \n What Happened to a Blind Man Who Was Leading Another \n What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman\n What Happened to a Merchant When He Found His Son and His Wife Sleeping Together \n What Happened to Count Fernán González with His Men after He Had Won the Battle of Hacinas \n What Happened to a Man Who Was Loaded down with Precious Stones and Drowned in the River \n What Happened to a Man and a Swallow and a Sparrow \n Why the Seneschal of Carcassonne Lost His Soul \n What Happened to a King of Córdova Named Al-Haquem \n What Happened to a Woman of Sham Piety \n What Happened to Good and Evil and the Wise Man and the Madman \n What Happened to Don Pero Núñez the Loyal, to Don Ruy González de Zavallos, and to Don Gutier Roiz de Blaguiello with Don Rodrigo the Generous \n What Happened to a Man Who Became the Devil's Friend and Vassal \n What Happened to a Philosopher who by Accident Went down a Street Where Prostitutes Lived \n What Befell a Moor and His Sister Who Pretended That She Was Timid \n What Happened to a Man Who Tested His Friends \n What Happened to the Man Whom They Cast out Naked on an Island When They Took away from Him the Kingdom He Ruled \n What Happened to Saladin and a Lady, the Wife of a Knight Who Was His Vassal \n What Happened to a Christian King Who Was Very Powerful and Haughty\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nBibliography\n\n Sturm, Harlan\n\n Wacks, David\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Internet Archive provides free access to the 1868 translation by James York.\nJSTOR has the to the 1977 translation by Keller and Keating.\nSelections in English and Spanish (pedagogical edition) with introduction, notes, and bibliography in Open Iberia/América (open access teaching anthology)\n\n14th-century books\nSpanish literature\n1335 books",
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim"
] |
[
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"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995.",
"was it a success?",
"Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit.",
"What happened in 1992",
"I don't know.",
"What song was in brown sugar",
"R&B top-ten singles \"Brown Sugar\" and \"Cruisin",
"What happened in 1995",
"The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995."
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | was the album given award? | 7 | was the album Brown Sugar by D'Angelo given award? | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | true | [
"The Grammy Award for Best Children's Album (from 2020: Grammy Award for Best Children's Music Album) is an honor presented since 2012 at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards. Honors in various categories are presented at the ceremony annually by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to \"honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry, without regard to album sales or chart position.\"\n\nHistory\nThe Best Children's Album award is given to recording artists for works containing quality performances aimed at children. The award has had several minor name changes:\n\nFrom 1959 to 1960 the award was known as Best Recording for Children\nIn 1961 it was awarded as Best Album Created for Children\nFrom 1962 to 1968 it was awarded as Best Recording for Children\nIn 1969 no award was given in the Children's Field\nFrom 1970 to 1991 it was awarded as Best Recording for Children\nFrom 1992 to 1993 it was awarded as Best Album for Children\nFrom 1994 to 2011 the award category was split into Best Musical Album for Children and Best Spoken Word Album for Children\nFrom 2012 to 2019 it was known as Best Children's Album, after the Best Musical Album for Children and Best Spoken Word Album for Children categories were merged (basically returning to the situation as it was prior to 1994, although with a small name change).\nFrom 2020 spoken word children's albums will be moved to the Best Spoken Word Album category. The category will be renamed Best Children's Music Album.\n \nThe 2012 restructuring of these and other categories was a result of the Recording Academy's wish to decrease the list of categories and awards. According to the Academy, \"[it] passed the proposal that a return to one category for all types of recordings for children, as it was from 1958-1993, would be most appropriate in this new context.\".\n\nWinners\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial site of the Grammy Awards\nNeela Vaswani's biography on her own site\n\nChildren's Album\nChildren's albums\nAlbum awards",
"The Latin Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album was an honor presented at the 1st Latin Grammy Awards, a ceremony that recognizes excellence and creates a wider awareness of cultural diversity and contributions of Latin recording artists in the United States and internationally. The award was given to performers for albums containing at least 51% of new recordings of the pop genre. The award category was given only the first year that the Latin Grammy Awards were presented, along with two more discontinued categories, Female Pop Vocal Performance and Male Pop Vocal Performance, which were created to recognize excellence for singles or album tracks. Starting from the 2nd Latin Grammy Awards those categories were merged, creating Best Female Pop Vocal Album and Male Pop Vocal Album.\n\nThe nominees for the category, in the inaugural year, included Toma Ketama! by Spanish band Ketama, Amarte Es Un Placer by Mexican singer Luis Miguel, MTV Unplugged by Mexican band Maná, Vengo Naciendo by Cuban performer Pablo Milanés, and MTV Unplugged by Colombian singer-songwriter Shakira. Regarding their nomination, Ketama's Antonio Carmona declared that he was surprised: \"I think it's the first time a flamenco group gets nominated for something like this... so this is a huge opportunity to be seen by the Latin world.\" The award was given to Miguel, who also earned the Latin Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Male Pop Vocal Performance for \"Tu Mirada\". About the award outcome, Leila Cobo of Billboard magazine, named Amarte Es Un Placer by Miguel \"unremarkable\", also mentioning that it was a surprise that the singer won three trophies that night, despite his refusal to attend the show and perform. As for the rest of the nominees, Shakira was awarded two Latin Grammys at the ceremony and eventually earned the Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album for her MTV Unplugged. Mexican band Maná received three awards that same year; Record of the Year and Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for \"Corazón Espinado\" (a duet with Santana) and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for \"Se Me Olvidó Otra Vez\". Milanés did not receive any awards that night. However, in 2006 he won in two categories, Best Singer-Songwriter Album and Best Traditional Tropical Album.\n\nIn 2020, the award for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Album was discontinued and the award for Best Pop Vocal Album was reinstated.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\n2000s\n\n2020s\n\nSee also\n Grammy Award for Best Latin Pop Album\n Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album \n Latin Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Album\n\nReferences\n\nVocal Album\nLatin pop albums\nPop Vocal Album\nAwards established in 2000"
] |
[
"D'Angelo",
"1991-1995: Brown Sugar",
"What happened in 1991",
"D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives",
"When was brown sugar released",
"Brown Sugar was released in June 1995.",
"was it a success?",
"Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit.",
"What happened in 1992",
"I don't know.",
"What song was in brown sugar",
"R&B top-ten singles \"Brown Sugar\" and \"Cruisin",
"What happened in 1995",
"The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995.",
"was the album given award?",
"On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America,"
] | C_163c3221fafd483fbfd08d4f5f129772_1 | Who did angelo work with | 8 | Who did D'Angelo work with? | D'Angelo | D'Angelo signed a publishing deal with EMI Music in 1991 after catching the attention of record executives through a demo tape, which was originally by the group. After an impressive audition for EMI execs, a three-hour impromptu piano recital, D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. A&R-man Gary Harris was primarily responsible for his signing, while manager Kedar Massenburg helped negotiate the contract as well. Massenburg became D'Angelo's manager after hearing of him through "the buzz on the streets". He had previously managed hip hop group Stetsasonic and formed the artist management-firm Kedar Entertainment in 1991, which he diversified into production, music publishing and publicity. In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders. Brown Sugar was released in June 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies. CANNOTANSWER | D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, | Michael Eugene Archer (born February 11, 1974), better known by his stage name D'Angelo (), is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He is associated with the neo soul movement, along with artists like Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Maxwell, and collaborator Angie Stone.
The son of a Pentecostal minister in Richmond, Virginia, D'Angelo taught himself piano as a child. At eighteen, he won the amateur talent competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem three weeks in a row. After a brief affiliation with hip-hop group I.D.U., his first major success came in 1994 as the co-writer and co-producer of the song "U Will Know".
His debut solo album, Brown Sugar (1995), received widespread acclaim and sold over two million copies. His next album, Voodoo (2000), debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200. Its lead single "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", entered the R&B charts and won a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance; likewise, Voodoo won Best R&B Album.
Following this period, D'Angelo became increasingly uncomfortable with his growing status as a sex symbol. This was followed by numerous personal struggles including alcoholism, and a fourteen-year long musical hiatus. D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah, in December 2014. The album was met with critical acclaim and fared well on music charts, peaking at number five on the US Billboard 200. The same year, D'Angelo was hailed as the next Marvin Gaye by GQ. D'Angelo also contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, performing the song "Unshaken".
Early life
D'Angelo was born Michael Eugene Archer in South Richmond, Virginia. His father was a Pentecostal preacher and D'Angelo was raised in an entirely Pentecostal family. Archer's musical talents were discovered very early as a child. He was 3 when spotted by his 10-year-old brother Luther, playing the house piano. After the formation of his native-Richmond, Virginia musical group, Michael Archer and Precise found success performing in the Amateur Night competition at Harlem, New York's Apollo Theater in 1991. The 18-year-old singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist dropped out of school and moved to New York City as an attempt to develop his music career. The group previously enjoyed some notice in Richmond, evenly dividing their repertoire between soul covers and originals while D'Angelo accumulated compositions of his own and developed his songwriting skills. The group's turnout on Amateur Night resulted in three consecutive wins and cash prize, and upon returning home to Richmond D'Angelo was inspired to produce an album and began composing material. This took place after a brief tenure as a member of the hip hop group I.D.U. (Intelligent, Deadly but Unique).
Career
1991–1995: Brown Sugar
At the age of 17, D'Angelo met Jocelyn Cooper Afropunk festival partner, who signed him to Midnight Songs LLC her joint venture publishing company administered by Universal Music Publishing Group after hearing a demo of the hip hop group I.D.U Intelligent, Deadly but Unique which D'Angelo produced and rapped in. After signing, Cooper introduced D'Angelo to musicians Raphael Saadiq, Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Angie Stone to collaborate as songwriters. Cooper then introduced D'Angelo to Fred Davis Head of A&R and Gary Harris at EMI Music. After an impressive audition D'Angelo was signed to a recording contract in 1993. Cooper also introduced D'Angelo to attorney Kedar Massenburg who helped negotiate his contract Massenburg later became D'Angelo's manager.
In 1994, his first significant success came in the form of the hit single "U Will Know". D'Angelo co-wrote and co-produced the song for the all-male R&B supergroup Black Men United, which featured R&B singers such as Brian McKnight, Usher, R. Kelly, Boyz II Men, Raphael Saadiq, and Gerald Levert. D'Angelo composed the music for "U Will Know", while his brother, Luther Archer, Midnight Songs LLC writer, wrote the lyrics. Originally featured on the soundtrack to the film Jason's Lyric (1994), the single peaked at number 5 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and at number 28 on the Billboard Hot 100. The music video for "U Will Know" featured D'Angelo as the group's choir director; he reprised the role for the live performance of the song at the Soul Train Music Awards. That same year, he wrote and produced the song "Overjoyed" for the Boys Choir of Harlem, which appeared on their studio album The Sound of Hope (1994). The success of "U Will Know" helped build the buzz surrounding D'Angelo, which was followed by a number of highly promoted showcases, and added to the buzz among music industry insiders.
Brown Sugar was released in July 1995. Although sales were sluggish at first, the album was eventually a hit. The album debuted at number six on the US Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in the week of July 22, 1995. It ultimately peaked at number four in the week of February 24, 1996, and spent a total of 54 weeks on the chart. Brown Sugar also spent 65 weeks on the Billboard 200 and peaked at number 22 on the chart. It sold 300,000 copies within its two months of release. The album had been selling 35,000 to 40,000 copies a week through to November 1995, and by January 1996, it had sold 400,000 copies. With the help of its four singles, including the gold-selling Billboard Hot 100 hit "Lady" and R&B top-ten singles "Brown Sugar" and "Cruisin", the album reached sales of 500,000 copies in the United States by October 1995. On February 7, 1996, it was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, following shipments in excess of one million copies in the U.S. The album was certified gold in Canada on May 9, 2000. Its total sales have been estimated within the range of 1.5 million to over two million copies.
1996–2000: Sabbatical period and Voodoo
Following the success of his debut album Brown Sugar (1995), D'Angelo went into a four and a half-year absence from the music scene and releasing solo work. After spending two years on tour promoting Brown Sugar, D'Angelo found himself stuck with writer's block. On the setback, D'Angelo later stated "The thing about writer's block is that you want to write so fucking bad, [but] the songs don't come out that way. They come from life. So you've got to live to write." During his sabbatical period, he generally released cover versions and remakes, including a cover-collaboration with Erykah Badu of the Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell duet song "Your Precious Love" for the soundtrack to High School High (1996). D'Angelo also covered Prince's "She's Always in My Hair" for the Scream 2 soundtrack (1997), as well as the Ohio Players' "Heaven Must Be Like This" for the Down in the Delta soundtrack (1998). He also appeared on a duet, "Nothing Even Matters", with Lauryn Hill for her debut solo album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill (1998).
The much-delayed follow-up to Brown Sugar, Voodoo, was released in 2000 on Virgin Records after the EMI Records Group was absorbed by the former label. Voodoo received rave reviews from contemporary music critics. who dubbed it a "masterpiece" and D'Angelo's greatest work. The album debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 320,000 copies in its first week. It entered the Billboard 200 on February 12, 2000 and remained on the chart for 33 consecutive weeks. As of 2005, the album has sold over 1.7 million copies in the US, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards which was awarded to D'Angelo and recording engineer Russell Elevado. The album was executive produce by then manager and creative collaborator, Dominique Trenier.
Its first two singles, "Devil's Pie" and "Left & Right", peaked at number 69 and number 70 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The latter was commercially aimed at R&B and hip hop-oriented radio stations due to the prominence of rappers Redman and Method Man on the track. According to Rich Ford, Jr., producer of the "Left & Right" music video, both the single and the video went commercially unnoticed due to MTV's refusal to place the song's video in rotation, serving as punishment for missing the deadline for its initial premiere. The fifth single "Feel Like Makin' Love" was less successful, reaching number 109 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks. "Send It On", the album's fourth single, achieved moderate chart success, peaking at number 33 on Billboards Pop Singles chart. The album's third single, "Untitled (How Does It Feel)", became its greatest chart success, peaking at number 25 on the Hot 100 Singles and at number two on the R&B Singles chart. Its infamous music video helped in boosting the song's appeal, as well as D'Angelo's. Billboard wrote of the video, "It's pure sexuality. D'Angelo, muscularly cut and glistening, is shot from the hips up, naked, with just enough shown to prompt a slow burning desire in most any woman who sees it. The video alone could make the song one of the biggest of the coming year". It earned three nominations for the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, including Video of the Year, Best R&B Video, and Best Male Video.
2001–2013: Second sabbatical, personal struggles and delayed album
Towards the end of his worldwide tour in support of the album that same year, D'Angelo's personal issues had worsened, affecting performances. He became more conscious of and uncomfortable with his status as a sex symbol, and after the tour D'Angelo returned to his home in Richmond, Virginia, disappearing from the public eye. Several of D'Angelo's peers and affiliates have noted the commercial impact of the "Untitled (How Does It Feel)" music video and The Voodoo Tour as contributing factors to D'Angelo's period of absence from the music scene. His former music manager, Dominique Trenier, explained his disappointment in the music video's impact in a 2008 interview for Spin magazine. Trenier was quoted as saying that "to this day, in the general populace's memory, he's the naked dude".
According to tour manager Alan Leeds, the experience "took away his confidence, because he's not convinced why any given fan is supporting him."
Following the suicide of his close friend, MTV-affiliate Fred Jordan, in April 2001, he started to develop a drinking problem. As his alcoholism escalated, plans for a live album and a Soultronics studio effort, both originally set for after the tour, were scrapped, and impatient Virgin executives cut off funding for the expected 2004 solo album.
By 2005, D'Angelo's girlfriend had left him, his attorney had become displeased with him, and most of his family was not in touch with him. He also parted ways with manager Dominique Trenier and tour manager Alan Leeds. After a car accident and an arrest on DUI and marijuana possession charges, D'Angelo left Virgin Records in 2005 and checked into the Crossroads Centre rehabilitation clinic in Antigua. In 2005, his recording contract was acquired by J Records, following rumors of D'Angelo signing to Bad Boy Records. Despite no solo output, D'Angelo collaborated with some R&B and hip hop artists during this period between albums, appearing on albums such as J Dilla's The Shining (2006), Snoop Dogg's Tha Blue Carpet Treatment (2006), Common's Finding Forever (2007), and Q-Tip's The Renaissance (2008).
D'Angelo's subsequent solo work was extensively delayed. Production for a full-length follow-up to Voodoo was stagnant, as he was working on and off mostly by himself during 2002. D'Angelo attempted to play every instrument for the project, striving for complete creative control similar to that of Prince. Russell Elevado described the resulting material as "Parliament/Funkadelic meets the Beatles meets Prince, and the whole time there's this Jimi Hendrix energy". However, those who previewed its songs found it to be unfinished. In the years that followed, D'Angelo's personal problems worsened, descending to drug and alcohol addiction. In January 2005 he was arrested and charged with possession of marijuana and cocaine. Various mugshots began circulating around the time, showing the singer looking overweight and unhealthy, in stark contrast to the muscular D'Angelo seen in promotion for Voodoo. In September 2005, a week after being sentenced on the drug charges, he was involved in a car accident, and was rumoured to be critically injured. However, a week after the crash a statement was issued by D'Angelo's attorney stating that he was fine continuing to say "He is anxious to finish the recording of his soul masterpiece that the world has patiently awaited.
No more was revealed on the new album until 2007, when Questlove leaked an unfinished track on Triple J Radio in Australia. Entitled "Really Love", the track was an acoustic flavored jam with a laid back swing feel. The leak apparently soured relations between the two. D'Angelo released a CD/DVD compilation album entitled The Best So Far…, first released on June 24, 2008 on Virgin Records. The compilation features songs from his two previous studio albums, Brown Sugar and Voodoo, as well as rarities and a second disc, a DVD of previously unreleased videos. Around the same time, the compilation was released digitally without the Erykah Badu and Raphael Saadiq featured songs, under the title Ultimate D'Angelo.
In late November 2011, D'Angelo announced a series of 2012 European tour dates. The tour kicked off January 26 in Stockholm, Sweden with its final show on February 10. The tour featured a selection of hits from his two previous albums and songs from his upcoming album, which was close to completion. He premiered 4 new songs: "Sugah Daddy", "Ain't That Easy", "Another Life" and "The Charade" which were well received. On June 9, 2012, he joined Questlove for the annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival's Superjam. He didn't play any of his original material and this marked the first time in nearly 12 years that he performed on stage in the US. On September 1, 2012, D'Angelo performed at Jay-Z's Made in America festival where he again performed the new songs, "The Charade" and "Sugah Daddy". On October 7, RCA Music Group announced that it was closing J Records, Arista Records, and Jive Records. With the shutdown, D'Angelo (and all other artists previously signed to those labels) would release his future material on RCA Records.
2014–2020: Black Messiah and "Unshaken"
D'Angelo released his third studio album, Black Messiah in December 2014. D'Angelo originally wanted to release Black Messiah in 2015, but the controversial decisions in the Ferguson and Eric Garner cases inspired him to release it earlier. On December 12, 2014, Kevin Liles, D'Angelo's manager, shared a 15-second teaser of the album on YouTube. Two days later, the track "Sugah Daddy", which had been part of D'Angelo's set list since 2012, premiered at 3am EST and 1,000 downloads were available on Red Bull's 20 Before 15 website. After an exclusive listening party in New York produced by Afropunk festival founder Matthew Morgan and Jocelyn Cooper, Black Messiah was released digitally on December 15 through iTunes, Google Play Music, and Spotify. The album's unexpected release was compared to Beyoncé's self-titled release in 2013. On January 13, 2015, "Really Love" was released to urban adult contemporary radio in the US.
The album was met with universal acclaim from critics and it currently has a 95/100 mean score on review aggregator Metacritic. In its first week of release, Black Messiah debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 and sold 117,000 copies in the United States. In its second week, the album dropped to number twenty five on the chart and sold another 40,254 copies. In the United Kingdom, it debuted at number 47 on the UK Albums Chart with first-week sales of 7,423 copies.
D'Angelo supported Black Messiah with a tour called The Second Coming. His band, once called "The Testimony" and later renamed "The Vanguard", includes drummer Chris Dave, bassist Pino Palladino, guitarists Jesse Johnson (The Time) and Isaiah Sharkey, vocalists Kendra Foster (sometimes replaced by Joi Gilliam), Jermaine Holmes, and Charles "Redd" Middleton, keyboardist Cleo "Pookie" Sample, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, saxophonist Kenneth Whalum manning the horn section, and D'Angelo as the lead vocalist, playing the electric grand piano, electric guitar, and even the band's conductor at certain moments. D'Angelo and The Vanguard's Second Coming Tour commenced in New York on February 7, 2015 and concluded in Austin on November 6, 2015, with a total of 57 shows in Europe, Asia and North America. At the 58th Annual Grammy Awards, Black Messiah won Best R&B Album while "Really Love" won Best R&B Song and was nominated for Record of the Year. Black Messiah, Beyoncé's self-titled album (2013), Run the Jewels' Run the Jewels 2 (2014), and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly (2015) were noted as laying the groundwork down for the politically charged releases that happened in 2016, which included Rihanna's Anti, Kanye West's The Life of Pablo, and Beyonce's "Formation".
In June 2015, D'Angelo confirmed to Rolling Stone that he was working on more material for a new album, calling it "a companion piece" to Black Messiah. D'Angelo performed Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April" on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in April 2016 accompanied by Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum as a tribute to the late musician, appearing 'overcome with emotion' at the passing of a major influence. D'Angelo contributed to the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2. He sang on the song "Unshaken" which was produced by Daniel Lanois. He had previously served as a playtester for the game itself due to his love for the series. The game's music team eventually invited him to perform on a song, which was finished in a week. "Unshaken" was later released as a digital single on January 4, 2019.
2021–present: Verzuz
On February 14, 2021, D'Angelo appeared on Instagram Live to announce that he would be performing at the Apollo Theater on February 27, 2021 in cooperation with the American webcast Verzuz. The event was billed as D'Angelo VS Friends and featured no opponents; instead, D'Angelo performed a solo set with shared performances with his peers and collaborators, Keyon Harrold, Method Man & Redman, and H.E.R..
On June 10, 2021, D'Angelo performed at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival in New York City for "The Songs of Red Dead Redemption 2". He performed his 2019 single "Unshaken", which was his contribution to the game's soundtrack. D'Angelo performed as a guitarist and the lead vocalist, with soundtrack producer Daniel Lanois, singer Rhiannon Giddens, and members of "D'Angelo and The Vanguard", guitarist Jesse Johnson and vocalists Jermaine Holmes and Charles Middleton by his side.
Artistry
In a 1995 interview, he discussed the influence that musician Prince had on his approach to recording his debut album, stating "I was one of those guys who read the album credits and I realized that Prince was a true artist. He wrote, produced, and performed, and that's the way I wanted to do it." According to D'Angelo, the hip hop influence present on the album "came from the Native Tongues movement – Tribe Called Quest, Gangstarr and Main Source." In a February 1999 interview with music journalist Touré, D'Angelo discussed his original inspirations to produce music, stating "The sound and feel of my music are going to be affected by what motivates me to do it". On his visit to South Carolina, D'Angelo stated that he "went through this tunnel, through gospel, blues, and a lot of old soul, old James Brown, early, early Sly and the Family Stone, and a lot of Jimi Hendrix", and "I learned a lot about music, myself, and where I want to go musically". In the same interview, he cited the deaths of rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. as having a great effect on him during the period. During the production of his second studio album D'Angelo recorded numerous hours of unreleased, original material, as well as covers of his influencers' material. Collectively referred to by D'Angelo as "yoda", these influencers included soul artist Al Green, funk artist George Clinton, and Afrobeat artist Fela Kuti.
Personal life
In the 1990s, D'Angelo dated soul singer Angie Stone. She was his muse for his Brown Sugar album and he helped her produce her debut album Black Diamond, released in 1999. Angie and D'Angelo have a son together, named Michael D'Angelo Archer II, born in 1998. D'Angelo also has two other children, a daughter, Imani Archer, born in 1999, and a son, Morocco Prince Archer, born in 2010.
Discography
Studio albums
Brown Sugar (1995)
Voodoo (2000)
Black Messiah (with The Vanguard) (2014)
Tours
Brown Sugar Tour (1996)
The Voodoo World Tour (2000)
Occupy Music Tour (2012)
The Liberation Tour (2012)
The Second Coming Tour (2015)
Awards and nominations
Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 2001
| Himself
| Favorite Male Artist - R&B
|
|
Grammy Awards
|-
|rowspan="3"| 1996
|| Brown Sugar
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Brown Sugar"
| Best R&B Song
|
|-
| rowspan="2"|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|| 1997
|"Lady"
|
|-
|| 1999
|"Nothing Even Matters" (with Lauryn Hill)
|Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2001
|| Voodoo
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Untitled (How Does It Feel)"
|Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| Best R&B Song
|
|-
|rowspan="2"|2003
|rowspan="2"| "Be Here" (with Raphael Saadiq)
|
|-
|Best Urban/Alternative Performance
|
|-
|2004
| "I'll Stay" (with Roy Hargrove)
| Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals
|
|-
|rowspan="3"| 2016
|| Black Messiah
| Best R&B Album
|
|-
|rowspan="2"| "Really Love"
| Record of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B Song
|
|}
MTV Europe Music Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| "Lady"
| MTV Amour
|
|
Pollstar Concert Industry Awards
!Ref.
|-
| 1996
| Himself
| Best New Rap/Dance Artist Tour
|
|
Rober Awards Music Prize
!Ref.
|-
| rowspan=2|2012
| Voodoo
| Best Reissue
|
|rowspan=2|
|-
| rowspan=5|Himself
| rowspan=2|Best Live Artist
|
|-
| rowspan=5|2015
|
|rowspan=5|
|-
| Best Group or Duo
|
|-
| Comeback of the Year
|
|-
| Best R&B
|
|-
|Black Messiah
| Album of the Year
|
See also
Neo soul
Soulquarians
References
External links
D'Angelo on imeem
1974 births
African-American male singer-songwriters
American rhythm and blues guitarists
American male guitarists
Grammy Award winners
Music of Richmond, Virginia
American neo soul singers
Musicians from Richmond, Virginia
Rhythm and blues pianists
Singer-songwriters from Virginia
Living people
Manchester High School (Virginia) alumni
RCA Records artists
Virgin Records artists
EMI Records artists
American hip hop singers
Guitarists from Virginia
Record producers from Virginia
American contemporary R&B singers
Ballad musicians
Male pianists
Male jazz musicians
African-American guitarists
Soulquarians members
20th-century African-American male singers
21st-century African-American male singers
The Soultronics members | true | [
"Henry Charles William Angelo (1756–1835) was an English memoirist and fencing master, as a member of the Angelo family of fencers and son of the Italian master, Domenico Angelo.\n\nAs the leader of his father's Angelo School of Arms from 1780 to 1817, he consolidated its status among London's high society, with upper class patronage and a cult of celebrity. He also maintained his family's reputation, reissuing his father's seminal fencing manual and composing several memoirs and a single work on fencing, himself.\n\nBiography\n\nHenry Charles William Malevolti was born on 5 April 1756 at St James's Place, Piccadilly, London. His baptismal surname was Malevolti, but in the late 1750s, he became known as Angelo, following his father's adoption of the surname. Angelo was born to the Italian-born fencing master, Domenico Angelo (1717–1802), and his wife, Elizabeth née Johnson (1738–1805). This placed Angelo in the second generation of the Angelo Family, a dynasty of fencing masters who \"dominated Europe's fencing scene for well over 100 years\", according to fencing master Nick Evangelista. \n\nAngelo grew up among four sisters and one brother, as the eldest child of the family. He attended the school is Chiswick, then run by Dr William Rose, then moving to Eton College (where his father taught fencing) as of 1764. In 1772, he began his formal training as a fencer, practicing swordsmanship under a Monsieur Motet in Paris, a man then known in the Continent as \"the greatest living fencer\", according to Egerton Castle. By 1775, he had returned to England to become his father's principal assistant.\n\nOn 23 October 1778, against the wishes of his family, he married Mary Bowman Swindon of West Auckland at St Anne's, Soho. They had their first child in 1799, with the Duke of York agreeing to be the child's godfather (the Duke already being Angelo's reputed godfather). Angelo had four sons, the second of whom, Henry Charles Angelo (1780–1852), became a fencing master himself, maintaining the family's reputation.\n\nIn 1780, Domenico Angelo retired from his fencing school, the Angelo School of Arms, and was supplanted by his son, Henry Angelo. Shortly after assuming control, Angelo moved the school's premises to Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket. Angelo specialised in cavalry swordsmanship, with his patrons including the London and Westminster Light Horse Volunteers. During his time, Angelo consolidated the academy's status within London high society, utilising a \"combination of sportsmanship, celebrity, and royal and noble patronage\", according to Malcolm Fare of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Here, in 1787, Angelo's friend and popular caricaturist, Thomas Rowlandson, produced a set of watercolours depicting Angelo's swordsmanship, illustrating several of his most distinguished students looking on (including Charles James Fox and The Marquess of Buckingham). In 1787, Angelo reissued his father's L'école des armes (1763), with fencing illustrations copied from Diderot's Encyclopédie, under the title The School of Fencing. This volume has been described by Evangelista \"the all-time classic volume on the subject of swordplay\" and \"a work of immense influence\".\n\nOn 17 June 1789, Her Majesty's Theatre was burned down and Angelo was forced to move to new premises, in 13 Bond Street, which he occupied alongside the boxer John Jackson. Angelo did not settle during his final years of teaching, tutoring at around forty schools in total, before an injury by actor Edmund Kean in 1817 forced him into retirement. The management of the school was then passed to his son, Henry Charles Angelo. Angelo died at Twickenham in 1835.\n\nIn his retirement, Angelo was a memoirist and, like his father, a writer on fencing. In 1817, he reissued his father's School of Fencing, under the title A Treatise on the Utility and Advantages of Fencing, with a biography of his friend, the composer and fencer Chevalier de Saint-Georges, appended. He reminisced of his life in London's high society in two memoirs: The Reminiscences of Henry Angelo (1828) and Angelo's Pic Nic; or, Table Talk (1834), ignoring discussion of fencing career for more conventional anecdotes, many of questionable veracity. Angelo published one original work on fencing, Hungarian and Highland Broadsword (1798), illustrated with 24 watercolours by Rowlandson, many depicting Angelo on horseback.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n\nWorks\n The School of Fencing (1787)\n Reminiscences of Henry Angelo (1828) at the Internet Archive\n Angelo's Pic Nic (1834) at the Internet Archive\nPortraits\n Rowlandson's prints of Henry Angelo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art\n Portraits of Henry Angelo at the National Portrait Gallery\n\n1756 births\n1835 deaths\nHenry Charles William\nEnglish male fencers",
"Greg D'Angelo, (born December 18, 1963) is an American drummer most famous for his work in the band White Lion.\n\nCareer\n\nEarly career (1981–1984)\nBetween 1981 and 1983, D'Angelo was a member of Anthrax. After leaving Anthrax, D’Angelo joined Cities. In 1985 he appeared on the Jack Starr Rock the American Way LP.\n\nWhite Lion career (1985–1991)\nD’Angelo joined White Lion in 1985, replacing Nicky Capozzi.\nThe band gained worldwide success with the release of the albums Pride, Big Game and Mane Attraction. In the spring of 1991, after a British tour, the rhythm section of D'Angelo and former White Lion bassist James Lomenzo left due to business discrepancies.\n\nPost-White Lion career (1992–present)\n\nIn 1993, both D'Angelo and LoMenzo performed with Zakk Wylde as Lynyrd Skynhead, who upon D'Angelo's departure from the band would become Pride & Glory.\nIn 1996 D'Angelo joined Orange County band Pirates of Venus and stayed with the band through 1998. He is also a former drummer for the band AntiProduct. In 2010 he Joined Stephen Pearcy's solo band, he recorded the \"Smash\" album with Pearcy and toured with a Pearcy band until 2018. He also currently works out of his mix studio in Los Angeles and is a counselor at Rock n Roll Fantasy Camp. Greg is currently a principal with performance group Legends of Classic Rock www.locrband.com www.gregdangelo.com\n\nReferences\n\nWhite Lion members\nAmerican heavy metal drummers\nLiving people\n1963 births\nAnthrax (American band) members\nMusicians from Brooklyn\n20th-century American drummers\nAmerican male drummers\nPride and Glory (band) members\nBritny Fox members\nAmerican people of Italian descent"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist"
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | What was racial integrationist? | 1 | What is racial integrationist? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | false | [
"Dana C. Chandler, Jr., also known as Akin Duro, (born April 7, 1941), is a Black Power artist, activist and Professor Emeritus at Simmons College.\n\nEarly life and education \nChandler was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. He grew up in the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.\n \nChandler was educated in Boston Public Schools. From an early age he began fighting for social justice using art as a tool for change. He was awarded the National Scholastic Art Award for all four years of his high school career, at Boston's Technical High School as well as the school's first annual Art Award in 1959. It was at this time that he joined the NAACP in the black integrationist movement. Chandler was influential on many artists including Gary Rickson.\n\nIn 1967, Chandler received a B.S. in Teacher Education from the Massachusetts College of Art.\n\nCareer \nChandler was a part of the black integrationist movement in Boston, using art for social justice and human rights.\n\nIn 1971, Chandler was hired as an assistant professor at Simmons College. He retired in May 2004.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n \n Dana C. Chandler, Jr. papers at Northeastern University\n\nLiving people\nAmerican activists\n1941 births\nPeople from Lynn, Massachusetts\nSimmons College (Massachusetts) faculty\nAmerican artists",
"Edward Craig Mazique (1911-1987) was a pioneer in the medical community especially among African Americans.\n\nFamily and divorce\n\nMazique was married to Jewell Mazique in 1937, separated in 1961, and divorced in 1965. They had two sons, Edward and Jeffrey. Both sons went on to become physicians. Jeffrey was the first black child to attend kindergarten at the Sidwell Friends School in 1956. As a direct result, Senator James Eastland, an anti-integrationist from Mississippi withdrew his son from the school.\n\nJewell preferred to be involved with social causes more than having a social life. Despite this view the Mazique's social life was frequently reported in magazines during the 1950s.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\n1911 births\n1987 deaths\nPhysicians from Maryland\nAfrican-American physicians\n20th-century African-American people"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital."
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races? | 2 | Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | Jones also helped to racially integrate | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | true | [
"Alan Jones Racing was a motorsport team contesting the Australian Touring Car Championship. At the end of 1997 Alan Jones sold his share of the team to Jim and Ross Stone who renamed it Stone Brothers Racing.\n\nHistory\n\nFormation\nAt the 1995 Sandown 500 it was revealed that Alan Jones had concluded a deal with Dick Johnson Racing engineers Jim and Ross Stone to form a new team, with backing controversially from Glenn Seton Racing sponsor Philip Morris, for whom Jones drove.\n\n1996\nNamed Alan Jones Racing, the team built two Ford EF Falcons to debut at Round 1 of the 1996 championship, #201 for Paul Romano and #301 for Jones, with Andrew Miedecke and Allan Grice joining the team for the endurance races.\n\nFrom January 1996 the Federal Government had outlawed the sponsorship of sporting events by tobacco companies. Thus Philip Morris could still sponsor a team but not directly market any of its products, resulting in the team being branded as Pack Leader Racing. After some teething problems with brakes in the opening rounds, the team began to move up the field with Jones leading during the early stages of the Bathurst 1000 before the car caught fire on lap 25.\n\nFor two races in New Zealand at the end 1996 the team had local sponsorship with #6 driven by Paul Radisich and #9 by Jones.\n\n1997\nHaving lost the Philip Morris sponsorship, in 1997 the team ran #9 for Jones with sponsorship from Komatsu and Pirtek, and a customer car for Mark Larkham as #10 with Mitre 10 sponsorship. Both cars upgraded to Ford EL Falcon specifications. Larkham was involved in a high speed with former team driver Paul Romano at round 2 at Phillip Island which saw a new car completed for the next round. Jones won a heat at the final round at Oran Park.\n\nFor the endurance races Jason Bright drove with Jones with the pair joined by Scott Pruett at the Bathurst 1000. Andrew Miedecke rejoined the team to partner Larkham, finishing 3rd at Bathurst.\n\nDemise\nAt the end of 1997 Alan Jones sold his share of the team to Jim and Ross Stone who renamed it Stone Brothers Racing.\n\nReferences\n\nAustralian auto racing teams\nAuto racing teams established in 1996\nSports teams in Queensland\nSupercars Championship teams\n1996 establishments in Australia\n1997 disestablishments in Australia\nSporting teams based on the Gold Coast, Queensland",
"Bradley Jones also known as Brad (born 2 April 1960) is a retired Australian racing driver. Jones now acts as team co-principal with his brother Kim in the V8 Supercar racing team, Brad Jones Racing.\n\nAlthough he is more known as a V8 team owner, Brad Jones was successful in nearly all forms of motorsport he competed in. He is one of only two people alongside Jim Richards to have won both the Australian AUSCAR and NASCAR championships.\n\nMotorsport career\nJones was born and grew up in the country town of Albury in New South Wales, where he still lives now. He has a range of experience in domestic and international racing that he puts to use in the V8 Supercar team he owns and runs with his brother Kim. Jones has driven with a number of manufacturers including Ford, Holden, Lotus, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Mitsubishi at domestic and international circuits in Japan, Macau and Belgium as well as Australia and New Zealand.\n\nJones started his racing career at the age of 14 doing motor cross racing from which he eventually progressed up to Formula Ford in 1980. He then spent a number of years occasionally driving a twin-turbo Chevrolet V8 powered Mercedes-Benz 450 SLC for Shepparton based racer Bryan Thompson. While driving for Thompson, Jones finished seventh in the 1985 Australian GT Championship driving the Mercedes and a Chevrolet Monza previously driven by Bob Jane, Peter Brock and Allan Grice (Thompson would win the championship also driving both cars, while Grice had won the championship in the Monza in 1984). Jones also proved himself as one of the stars of Series Production racing driving a Mitsubishi Starion Turbo during the early to mid-1980s, having many battles with production car \"king\" Peter Fitzgerald in another Starion, and former Bathurst winners Brian Sampson in yet another Starion, and Colin Bond in an Alfa Romeo GTV6.\n\nIn 1985 the Mitsubishi Ralliart Team invited him to race in the two major Australian endurance races, the 1985 Castrol 500 at Sandown, and the 1985 James Hardie 1000 in a factory Group A Mitsubishi Starion. Jones' first start in the Bathurst 1000 lasted only just past the first turn on the first lap. A mid-field mishap saw Jones' Starion and the Holden VK Commodore of 1981 race winner John French collide and spin off into the tyre barrier with both cars too damaged to continue. This relationship with the Ralliart team lasted on and off until the end of 1988, with Jones racing extensively in Japan and often being overlooked for Australian races. During this time he qualified the Starion in the top 10 at Bathurst for the 1986 James Hardie 1000, and finish 10th outright in 1988.\n\nFor 1989 Jones moved into the \"big time\", landing the drive as Peter Brock's teammate in the Mobil 1 Racing team driving an ex-Andy Rouse BTCC Ford Sierra RS500 in the 1989 Australian Touring Car Championship, though his series was cut short after Barry Sheene had wrecked Jones' car while testing at Winton. He would later qualify his car in the top 10 at the 1989 Tooheys 1000 and partnering Paul Radisich would finish the race in ninth position. In the 1990 the cost of running the expensive European based Sierra's forced Brock to join forces with Andrew Miedecke (whose own Sierra, like Brock's, had links to British Sierra expert Rouse), leaving Jones without a drive. From 1990–1994 he was then called upon to drive for the Factory Holden Racing Team in the endurance races. While he was with the factory team he was quite successful and gained many podiums at both Sandown and Bathurst paired with Neil Crompton (1990–91), Tomas Mezera (1992), Wayne Gardner (1993) and Craig Lowndes (1994).\n\nBrad Jones' AUSCAR career started in 1988 in the third annual Goodyear AUSCAR 200 at the Calder Park Thunderdome, a track he would come to dominate, in a Holden VL Commodore dubbed the \"Green Meanie\" due to its colour. Jones quickly became a front runner in the series, eventually winning 5 consecutive championships in his self run team (with help from his brother Kim), Coopertools Racing (later with corporate Castrol sponsorship), all using Holden Commodore's. After dominating the AUSCAR's, Jones then turned his hands to the Australian NASCAR series and won the 94/95 championship driving a Chevrolet Lumina. Jones wasn't just dominant at the Thunderdome, he was also a regular winner on the ½ mile flat track Super Bowl at the Adelaide International Raceway (the only other paved oval in Australia), while his road racing background also saw him a winner on tracks like the Surfers Paradise Street Circuit and the short course at Oran Park.\n\nIn 1995 he switched from the Holden Racing Team to the Wayne Gardner owned Coca-Cola Team for whom he drove in both Sandown and Bathurst for 1995 and 1996 in a Holden VR Commodore. Once he lost the contract to drive with HRT he had to wait another year to get a contract to drive with Mark Larkham's Mitre 10 Ford Team. In the mid 1990s he also set up a highly successful Audi Super Touring team for the Australian Super Touring Championship, winning the championship in 1996 and 1998. He finished second with Frank Biela in an Audi A4 Quattro in the Super Touring 1997 AMP Bathurst 1000, while finishing third in 1998 with regular partner Cameron McConville.\n\nHe also won the 1994 Australian Super Production Car Series in a Lotus Esprit.\n\nIn 2000 the Jones brothers agreed that it would be a good decision to move to V8 Supercars full-time with their own team, the OzEmail Racing Team. In just the second year after the team was established, Jones and co-driver John Cleland finished second at the 2001 V8 Supercar 1000 at Bathurst after fighting Mark Skaife right to the end of the 1000 kilometre race with a gap at the end of only just over 2 seconds after a 6-hour race.\n\nIn 2000, Jones, thanks to his success in Super Touring with Audi, was also drafted into the Audi Sport North America team (run by Joest Racing) for the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) Race of a Thousand Years held on 31 December. This race was run on the Adelaide Street Circuit using the full Grand Prix version of the track rather than the shortened V8 Supercars version. Jones was on standby for lead driver Allan McNish who had injured his back stepping out of his Kilt after a pre-event photo shoot, and although Brad qualified the car, McNish recovered in time to take his place in the Audi R8 LMP, leaving Jones a spectator. McNish and his regular co-driver Rinaldo Capello won the race which also saw McNish crowned the inaugural ALMS Champion.\n\nIn 2002, Brad Jones Racing returned to the Mount Panorama Circuit with a two car team, Jones teamed up with John Bowe and led the race for the first 59 laps, setting the fastest ever race lap time in the history of the event at the time. In 2003 BJR didn't finish well but that took a turn in 2004 when the team took 3rd at the mountain.\n\nIn 2005 there was a change of team sponsor and the team was now called Team BOC. The team started on a high when Jones and Bowe placed first and second in the V8 Supercar support races at the Australian Grand Prix when they were the only team to choose dry slicks while the others took wet tyres in changing weather conditions. It then swiftly changed for the worse at Bathurst when Jones and the team could only manage 26th qualifying position and on race day were wiped out while charging through the field within the first 10 laps.\n\nIn 2006 there was new hope for Jones and the team as they had a new engine supplier, Stone Brothers Racing, and staff changes. But the SBR engine pack lacked reliability and power, which made the engine famous and the team struggled, especially after one of their codrivers (Mark Porter) was killed in an accident at the Bathurst 1000 km round. At the end of the season, long time driver John Bowe left the team and moved to Paul Cruickshank Racing. Jones' nephew, Andrew Jones joined the team after his two years at Garry Rogers Motorsport in 2005 and Tasman Motorsport in 2006.\n\nJones announced his retirement from full-time racing after the 2007 New Zealand round. His car was driven for the rest of the season by Simon Wills. Jones continues to appear in media roles regularly having taken on guest commentator roles with TV broadcasts over ten years ago, and co-hosted with Neil Crompton, which was hosted by internet provider Telstra Bigpond as part of their V8 Supercar package until it was axed at the end of 2008. Jones continued to drive for his team in an endurance co-driver role, finishing fifth in the 2008 Bathurst 1000. After running as high a third in the 2009 Bathurst 1000 and a career spanning 109 ATCC/V8s races spanning 24 seasons, Jones retired from competitive racing.\n\nAs of 2021 Brad Jones was adopted by the Junior Sailors from the Australian Warship HMAS Arunta as the almighty ruler of the Junior Sailors Café. There is a permanent shrine in dedication to \"Bradmiral Jones\" on the fwd bulkhead of the café onboard HMAS Arunta.\n\nCareer results\nResults sourced from Driver Database.\n\nComplete World Sportscar Championship results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\n† Not eligible for series points\n\nComplete World Touring Car Championship results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\n† Not eligible for series points\n\nComplete Asia-Pacific Touring Car Championship results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\nComplete American Le Mans Series results\n(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)\n\n* Jones qualified the race winning #77 Audi R8 in Adelaide (Rinaldo Capello set the pole time) but he did not drive in the race.\n\nComplete Bathurst 1000 results\n\n* Super Touring races\n\nComplete Bathurst 24 Hour results\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBrad Jones Racing\n\n1960 births\nAustralian Touring Car Championship drivers\nLiving people\nMotorsport announcers\nPeople from Albury, New South Wales\nRacing drivers from New South Wales\nSupercars Championship drivers"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.",
"Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races?",
"Jones also helped to racially integrate"
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | In what year did this take place? | 3 | In what year did integrating the races place? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | In 1960, | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | true | [
"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place () is a collection of three short essays by Jean Baudrillard published in the French newspaper Libération and British paper The Guardian between January and March 1991.\n Part 1, \"The Gulf War will not take place\" (La guerre du Golfe n'aura pas lieu) was published in Libération on January 4, 1991.\n Part 2, \"The Gulf War is not really taking place\" (La guerre du Golfe a-t-elle vraiment lieu?) was published in Libération on February 6, 1991, and\n Part 3, \"The Gulf War did not take place\" (La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu) was published in Libération on March 29, 1991.\n\nContrary to the title, the author believes that the events and violence of the Gulf War actually took place, whereas the issue is one of interpretation: were the events that took place comparable to how they were presented, and could these events be called a war? The title is a reference to the play The Trojan War Will Not Take Place by Jean Giraudoux (in which characters attempt to prevent what the audience knows is inevitable).\n\nThe essays in Libération and The Guardian were published before, during and after the Gulf War and they were titled accordingly: during the American military and rhetorical buildup as \"The Gulf War Will Not Take Place\"; during military action as \"The Gulf War Is Not Taking Place\", and after action was over, \"The Gulf War Did Not Take Place\". A book of elongated versions of the truncated original articles in French was published in May 1991. The English translation was published in early 1995 translated by Paul Patton.\n\nSummary \nBaudrillard argued the Gulf War was not really a war, but rather an atrocity which masqueraded as a war. Using overwhelming airpower, the American military for the most part did not directly engage in combat with the Iraqi army, and suffered few casualties. Almost nothing was made known about Iraqi deaths. Thus, the fighting \"did not really take place\" from the point of view of the West. Moreover, all that spectators got to know about the war was in the form of propaganda imagery. The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish between the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylized, selective misrepresentation through simulacra.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Baudrillard, Jean (1991) La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, Paris: Galilée.\n Baudrillard, Jean (1995) The Gulf War Did Not Take Place, Bloomington: Indiana University Press\n\n1995 non-fiction books\nBooks by Jean Baudrillard\nEssays about hyperreality\nFrench non-fiction books\nGulf War books",
"¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? (in English, What would have happened if...?) is a counterfactual history Argentine book written by Rosendo Fraga. The book speculates on how would the History of Argentina have developed if certain key events did not take place or had happened in a different way.\n\nDescription\nAmong other things, the book speculates what would have happened if the viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata wasn't created, if the British invasions of the Río de la Plata did not fail, if José de San Martín had obeyed the Supreme Directors and returned with the Army of the Andes to fight Artigas instead of taking the independentist war to Peru, if the Conquest of the Desert did not take place, if the different coup d'états that took place in Argentina did not happen or were defeated, and if Argentina had obtained the sovereignty of the Malvinas. Each chapter starts with a basic premise but speculates as well on related possibilities that could have influenced changes: for example, the one on San Martin questions as well what would have happened if the government of Chile fell, if a Spanish task force arrived to take Buenos Aires, and what stance could have the caudillos taken in those hypothetic scenarios.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Interview with Rosendo Fraga about the book \n\nArgentine books\nAlternate history anthologies"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.",
"Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races?",
"Jones also helped to racially integrate",
"In what year did this take place?",
"In 1960,"
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | Did he receive a lot of opposition? | 4 | Did Jim Jones receive a lot of opposition? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | true | [
"The leader of the opposition (LO) is an official parliamentary appointment in the Parliament of Singapore. The leader of the opposition is the leader of the majority political party in Parliament that is not in the government. If one party wins outright, the role is offered to the elected party leader of the second-largest political party in the Parliament.\n\nThe first de jure leader of the opposition is Pritam Singh, who is the current secretary general of the Workers' Party.\n\nHistory\nThe leader of the opposition was formerly an unofficial de facto position in the Parliament of Singapore, as the constitution and standing orders of Parliament did not provide for such a position. The formal office was established in the aftermath of the 2020 general election, which saw the opposition Workers' Party winning ten seats in Parliament. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the creation of the formal office and that the leader of the opposition would be provided with the appropriate manpower support and resources to perform the parliamentary role. As in other Commonwealth countries with a Westminster parliamentary system of government, the parliamentary appointment is supported with a secretariat and is additionally given office space in the Parliament buildings.\n\nDue to its former status as a de facto role, the leader of the opposition did not draw any additional allowance by virtue of holding the position and were entitled only to the usual ordinary remuneration allowance granted to other regular Members of Parliament. With the creation of the formal office, Parliament announced that the appointment holder will draw an annual salary of S$385,000, double the salary of a regular MP.\n\nSeating in Parliament\nThe leader of the opposition sits on the left side of the Parliament chamber, directly opposite the prime minister and for a short time in the 13th Parliament, the deputy prime minister.\n\nDuties \nThe leader of the opposition is expected to lead the opposition in presenting alternative views in parliamentary debates on policies, bills and motions, and organise the scrutiny of the Government’s positions and actions in Parliament and be consulted on the appointment of opposition members to Select Committees, including Standing Select Committees such as the Public Accounts Committee.\n\nIn addition to his parliamentary duties, the leader of the opposition may be called upon to take on other duties such as attending official state functions and taking part in visits and meetings alongside members of the Government and the Public Service.\n\nPower & Resources \nIn Parliament, the leader of the opposition will generally be given the right of first response among Members of Parliament, and will be allowed ask the lead question to the ministers on policies, bills and motions, subject to existing speaking conventions. The leader of the opposition will also be given a longer speaking duration for speeches, equivalent to that given to political officeholders.\n\nIn addition to the government data or information available to other MPs, the leader of the opposition will receive confidential briefings by the Government on select matters of national security and external relations, and in the event of a national crisis or emergency.\n\nThe leader of the opposition will be provided an office and the use of a meeting room in Parliament House. He will also receive allowances to hire up to three additional legislative assistants. This is in addition to the allowances all MPs receive for one legislative assistant and one secretarial assistant. The leader of the opposition will also be provided with a secretary to support him administratively with parliamentary business.\n\nList of leaders of the opposition\n\nSee also\n\nPrime Minister of Singapore\nLeader of the Opposition\n\nReferences\n\nLegislative branch of the Singapore Government\n Leader of the Opposition\nSingapore",
"Guillaume Duprat (1507–1560) was a French bishop. He founded the Collège de Clermont in Paris.\n\nHe was born at Issoire, son of the chancellor and Cardinal Antoine Duprat. He was appointed Bishop of Clermont in 1529; later he took part in the last sessions of the Council of Trent. He was a patron of the Jesuits. Not only did he receive them in his diocese, where they were put in charge of the colleges of Billom and Mauriac, but, in the face of opposition, he helped them financially and in other ways, in particular by founding the Collège de Clermont, so called after his episcopal city. He died at Beauregard.\n\nReferences\n\nAttribution\n\n1507 births\n1560 deaths\nBishops of Clermont\nParticipants in the Council of Trent"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.",
"Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races?",
"Jones also helped to racially integrate",
"In what year did this take place?",
"In 1960,",
"Did he receive a lot of opposition?",
"Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views."
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | Did he face any dangers in trying to integrate the race? | 5 | Did Jim Jones face any dangers in trying to integrate the race? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | false | [
"Jason Rudd (born April 15, 1979) is an American former professional stock car racing driver. Last racing for Means Racing in the NASCAR Busch Series, Rudd never ran a full-time season. He is the nephew of former NASCAR Cup Series driver Ricky Rudd.\n\nCareer\nRudd started his NASCAR career in 1999, trying and failing to qualify for both Richmond races in the NASCAR Busch Series. After not trying to run any races in 2000, Rudd returned to NASCAR competition in 2001, racing for teams such as Means Racing, HighLine Performance Group, PRW Racing, and his grandfather Al Rudd's team. Rudd finished the season with a highest finish of 31st, and failing to qualify for two races, both while racing for his grandfather's team.\n\nIn 2002, Rudd moved down to ARCA, racing for his own team for six races. He would rack up 1 top-5 and 3 top-tens in the six races he raced in. He finished the series 32nd in the overall standings. In 2003, Rudd returned to the Busch series, driving a race for JD Motorsports and Moy Racing each. However, he also failed to qualify for 3 races, racing for himself.\n\nIn 2004, Rudd returned to both the Busch Series and ARCA. In the Busch series, he raced a single race for Means Racing, staying in the race for 8 laps before dropping out because of a vibration. Rudd's ARCA season didn't go quite as planned either, since although he made the two races he tried to race in, he was caught in a wreck early in the first race, and retired with a blown engine in the other.\n\nIn 2005, Rudd did not race in either series, but instead decided to try his shot at the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series, but failed to qualify in both races he attempted. He has not attempted to run another NASCAR race since.\n\nMotorsports career results\n\nNASCAR\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nBusch Series\n\nCraftsman Truck Series\n\nARCA Re/Max Series\n(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\nLiving people\n1979 births\nNASCAR drivers\nSportspeople from Chesapeake, Virginia\nARCA Menards Series drivers\nRacing drivers from Virginia",
"Exile is a fantasy novel by American writer R. A. Salvatore, the second book in The Dark Elf Trilogy. It was published in 1990.\n\nPlot introduction\nExile follows Drizzt Do'Urden to the wilds of the Underdark. For the ten years following his abandoning his house, he is left with no one but his faithful Guenhwyvar, a magical Panther he had acquired in Homeland. He is also met with great dangers that he meets with the business ends of his scimitars. Struggling with conflicting emotions, which involve his failure in Menzoberranzan and a deep grief for his father Zaknafien, he makes his way to the surface to face newer dangers.\n\nPlot summary\nDrizzt spent some years in the Underdark, during which he was enslaved by mind flayers and then had to fight Zaknafein again, who had been made undead by Malice, thanks to Lolth's \"greatest gift\" Zin-Carla, to find Drizzt. In the end, Zaknafein regained enough control to sacrifice himself, flinging his body into a pool of acid.\n\nFor Malice's failure to use Zaknafein to kill Drizzt, Lolth decreed that house Do'Urden should be destroyed, and House Baenre, the most favored First House of Menzoberranzan, did just that, with only Vierna and Dinin surviving.\n\nReviews\nReview by Mark Caswell (1991) in Fear, June 1991\nReview by Andy Sawyer (1991) in Paperback Inferno, #90\n\nReferences\n\n1990 American novels\nForgotten Realms novels\nNovels by R. A. Salvatore"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.",
"Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races?",
"Jones also helped to racially integrate",
"In what year did this take place?",
"In 1960,",
"Did he receive a lot of opposition?",
"Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.",
"Did he face any dangers in trying to integrate the race?",
"a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call."
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | Was there any particular groups against Jones? | 6 | Was there any particular groups against Jim Jones? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | American Nazi leaders | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | false | [
"Henry Oliver Jones (December 9, 1923 – October 4, 1990) was an American singer and songwriter.\n\nBiography\nJones was born in Philadelphia. From the mid 1940s until the late 1950s, he was a member of various doo-wop vocal groups, including The Ravens, The Blenders, and The Cues. The latter group, in particular, performed as backing singers for recording stars, including LaVern Baker, Big Joe Turner, and Nat \"King\" Cole.\n \nJones also wrote songs, and with his vocal bandmates recorded demo recordings. His best-known compositions include \"Send for Me\", a number one R&B chart hit for Nat \"King\" Cole in 1957; \"Love Makes the World Go Round\", a hit for Perry Como in 1958; Fabian's 1959 hit \"Tiger\"; \"Step by Step\" by The Crests in 1960; \"I'll Be There\" by Damita Jo, a response to Ben E. King's hit \"Stand By Me\"; and \"Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers\", recorded by Elvis Presley in 1963. Jones is credited at BMI with over 200 compositions.\n\nJones died in Teaneck, New Jersey, in 1990, aged 66.\n\nReferences\n\n1923 births\n1990 deaths\nAmerican rhythm and blues musicians\nAfrican-American songwriters\nSongwriters from Pennsylvania\n20th-century African-American people",
"Brighter Side of Darkness was an American R&B/soul group. They were formed in 1971 at Calumet High School in Chicago, Illinois. Their lead singer was 12-year-old Darryl Lamont; the other members were Ralph Eskridge, Randolph Murph and Larry Washington.\n\nThey released the single \"Love Jones\" in December 1972. It was a hit in the US (Hot 100, #16; Hot Soul Singles, #3) and was certified gold by February 9, 1973, by the RIAA. They released an album, Love Jones, in 1973. Their second single, \"I Owe You Love\", was less successful, and the group disbanded in 1974.\n\nAn updated, more mature version of \"Love Jones\" was recorded in 1975 by labelmates \"The Imaginations.\" In addition, \"Love Jones\" was parodied as \"Basketball Jones\" by Cheech and Chong in 1973. The parody was released as a single in August 1973 and reached #15 on the Hot 100.\n\nDiscography\nLove Jones (20th Century Records, 1973) US R&B Albums #35\n\nReferences\n\nMusical groups from Chicago\n \nAmerican soul musical groups\nChild musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1972\nMusical groups disestablished in 1974"
] |
[
"Jim Jones",
"Racial integrationist",
"What was racial integrationist?",
"racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital.",
"Was Jim Jones successful in integrating the races?",
"Jones also helped to racially integrate",
"In what year did this take place?",
"In 1960,",
"Did he receive a lot of opposition?",
"Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views.",
"Did he face any dangers in trying to integrate the race?",
"a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call.",
"Was there any particular groups against Jones?",
"American Nazi leaders"
] | C_7f91a4213bd949ffae3a39c620ea7f45_0 | Did he have any supporters? | 7 | Did Jim Jones have any supporters? | Jim Jones | In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the Human Rights Commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. When the mayor and other commissioners asked Jones to curtail his public actions, he resisted and was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, and then climaxed with, "Let my people go!" During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the police department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Methodist Hospital. After swastikas were painted on the homes of two African-American families, Jones personally walked the neighborhood comforting local black people and counseling white families not to move, in order to prevent white flight. Jones set up stings to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi leaders and then leaked their responses to the media. When Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, he refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bed pans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones' actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards. Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. White-owned businesses and locals were critical of him. A swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones' house after a threatening phone call. Other incidents occurred, though some suspect that Jones himself may have been involved in at least some of them. CANNOTANSWER | NAACP and Urban League | James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the Peoples Temple, a new religious organization which existed between 1955 and 1978. In what he described as "revolutionary suicide", Jones and his inner circle orchestrated a mass murder–suicide in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.
As a youth, Jones developed an affinity for pentecostalism and a desire to be a preacher. He was ordained as a Christian minister in the Independent Assemblies of God and attracted his first followers while participating in the Pentecostal Latter Rain movement and the Healing Revival during the 1950s. Jones' initial popularity arose from his joint campaign appearances and endorsement by the movements' prominent leaders, William Branham and Joseph Mattsson-Boze. With their support, Jones took a leadership role in multiple international conventions where he recruited many new members for his church. Jones founded the organization that would become the Peoples Temple in Indianapolis in 1955. Jones distinguished himself through civil rights activism, founding the Temple as a fully integrated congregation, and promoting Christian socialism. In 1964, Jones joined and was ordained a minister by the Disciples of Christ; his attraction to the Disciples was largely due to the autonomy and tolerance they granted to differing views within their denomination.
In 1965, Jones moved the Temple to California, where the group established its headquarters in San Francisco and became heavily involved in political and charitable activity throughout the 1970s. Jones developed connections with prominent California politicians and was appointed as chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission in 1975. Beginning in the late 1960s, Jones became increasingly vocal in his rejection of traditional Christianity and began promoting his teachings as "Apostolic Socialism" and making claims of his own divinity. Jones became progressively more controlling of the members of Peoples Temple, which at its peak had over 3,000 members. Jones's followers engaged in a communal lifestyle in which they turned over all their income and property to Jones and Peoples Temple who directed all aspects of community life.
Following a period of negative media publicity and reports of abuse at Peoples Temple, Jones ordered the construction of a commune called Jonestown in Guyana in 1974, and convinced or compelled many of his followers to live there with him. Jones claimed that he was constructing a socialist paradise free from the oppression of the United States government. By 1978, media reports had surfaced of human rights abuses and accusations that people were being held in Jonestown against their will. U.S. Representative Leo Ryan led a delegation to the commune in November of that year to investigate these reports. While boarding a return flight with some former Temple members who had wished to leave, Ryan and four others were murdered by gunmen from Jonestown. Jones then ordered a mass murder-suicide that claimed the lives of 909 commune members, 304 of them children; almost all of the members died by drinking Flavor Aid laced with cyanide.
Early life
James Warren Jones was born on May 13, 1931, in the rural community of Crete, Indiana, to James Thurman Jones and Lynetta Putnam. Jones went by the nickname Jimmy during his youth. Jones was of Irish and Welsh descent; he and his mother both claimed partial Cherokee ancestry, but there is no evidence of such ancestry. Jones's father was a disabled World WarI veteran who suffered from severe breathing difficulties from a chemical weapons attack. The military pension he received for his injuries was not sufficient to support his family, and he attempted to supplement his income by periodically working on local road repair projects.
Childhood poverty
The financial difficulties caused by his father's illness led to marital problems between Jones's parents. In 1934, in the midst of the Great Depression, the Jones family was evicted from their home for failure to make mortgage payments. Their relatives purchased a shack for them to live in at the nearby town of Lynn. The new home, where Jones grew up, lacked plumbing and electricity. In Lynn, the family attempted to earn an income through farming, but again met with failure when Jones's father's health further deteriorated. The family often lacked adequate food and relied on financial support from their extended family. They sometimes had to resort to foraging in the nearby forest and fields to supplement their diet.
According to multiple Jones biographers, his mother had "no natural maternal instincts" and frequently neglected her son. Her pregnancy had been unwanted, and she expressed disappointment at becoming a mother and was often bitter and unhappy about their family's financial and social position. When Jones began attending school, his extended family threatened to cut off their financial assistance unless his mother took a job, forcing her to work outside the home. Meanwhile, Jones's father was hospitalized multiple times due to his illness. As a result, Jones's parents were frequently absent during his childhood.
His aunts and uncles who lived nearby provided some supervision, but Jones often wandered the streets of the town (sometimes naked) with no one caring for him. Many women in Lynn felt sorry for Jones, and he was frequently invited into the homes of his neighbors who provided him with meals, clothing, and other gifts.
Early religious and political influences
Myrtle Kennedy, the wife of the pastor of the local Nazarene Church, developed a special attachment to Jones. Jones often stayed overnight in the Kennedys' home to be cared for by them. Kennedy, known in the community for her religious zeal, took Jones to church multiple times a week. She gave Jones a Bible and encouraged him to study it and taught him to follow the holiness code of the Nazarene Church. Jones was able to quote Bible passages from an early age.
As Jones grew older, he attended services at most of the churches in Lynn, often going to multiple churches each week, and he was also baptized in several of them. Jones began to develop a desire to become a preacher as a youth and started to practice preaching in private. His mother claimed that she was disturbed when she caught him imitating the pastor of the local Apostolic Pentecostal Church and she unsuccessfully attempted to prevent him from attending the church's services. In his early teenage years, Jones spent several months evangelizing in his community on behalf of the local Pentecostal church.
Although they had sympathy for Jones because of his poor circumstances, his neighbors reported that he was an unusual child who was obsessed with religion and death. He regularly visited a casket manufacturer in Lynn and held mock funerals for roadkill that he had collected. When he could not get any children to attend his funerals, he would perform the services alone. Jones claimed that he had been given special powers, including the ability to fly. To prove his powers to the other children, he once jumped from the roof of a building and fell, breaking his arm. Despite the fall, he continued to claim that he had special powers. One Jones biographer suggested that he developed his unusual interests because he found it difficult to make friends.
Although his strange religious practices stood out the most to his neighbors, they also reported that he misbehaved in more serious ways. He frequently stole candy from merchants in the town; his mother was required to pay for his thefts. Jones regularly used offensive profanity, commonly greeting his friends and neighbors by saying, "Good morning, you son of a bitch" or, "Hello, you dirty bastard". At different times, he would put other children into life-threatening situations and tell them he was guided by the Angel of Death. In later years, Jones claimed that he had performed numerous sacrilegious pranks at the churches he attended as a child. He claimed that he stole the Pentecostal pastor's bible and put cow manure on Acts 2:38. He also claimed that at a Catholic church, he replaced the holy water with a cup of his own urine. Jones's mother beat him with a leather belt in order to punish his misbehavior.
When World War II broke out, Jones became enamored with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. He was intrigued by their pageantry, their unity, and the absolute power wielded by Hitler. The people in his community found his idolization of Nazi Germany disturbing. Jones played dictator with the other children, forcing them to goosestep in unison and hitting the children who failed to obey his orders. One childhood acquaintance recalled that Jones gave the Nazi salute and shouted "Heil Hitler!" when he met German prisoners of war passing through their community en route to a detention facility.
Jones developed an intense interest in religion and social doctrines. He became a voracious reader who studied Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Mao Zedong and Mahatma Gandhi. He spent hours in the community library, and he brought books home so he could read them in the evenings. Although he studied different political systems, Jones did not espouse any radical political views in his youth.
Commenting on his childhood, Jones stated, "I was ready to kill by the end of the third grade. I mean, I was so aggressive and hostile, I was ready to kill. Nobody gave me love, any understanding. In those days a parent was supposed to go with a child to school functions. There was some kind of school performance, and everybody's parent was there but mine. I'm standing there, alone. Always was alone." Tom Reiterman, a biographer of Jones, wrote that Jones's attraction to religion was strongly influenced by his desire for a family.
In 1942, the Kennedy family moved to Richmond, Indiana, for the summer and Jones visited them. They attended a summer religious convention at a nearby Pentecostal church, participating in services four times a week. When Jones returned to Lynn in the autumn, he offended his community by giving explicit explanations of sexual reproduction to young children. Many people in Lynn demanded that Jones' mother curtail his behavior, but she refused. The situation caused many of the other parents to keep their children away from him. By the time he entered high school, he had become an outcast among his peers and was increasingly disliked by the members of his community.
Education and marriage
In high school, Jones continued to stand out from his peers. He enjoyed debating his teachers, and he was also a good student. He developed a habit of refusing to answer anyone who spoke to him first, he only spoke to people when he initiated conversations with them. Jones was known to wear his Sunday church attire every day of the week, while his peers dressed more casually. He almost always carried his bible with him. His religious views alienated many of his peers. He frequently confronted them for drinking beer, smoking, and dancing. At times, he would interrupt other young people's events and insist that they read the bible with him.
Jones disliked playing sports because he hated losing, so he served as coach on sports teams he organized with younger children. In 1945, Jones organized an entire league of teams for a summer baseball tournament. While he was attending a baseball game in Richmond, Jones was bothered by the treatment of African Americans who attended the game. The events at the ball game brought discrimination against African Americans to Jones's attention and influenced his strong aversion to racism. Jones's father was associated with the Indiana branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which had become very popular in Depression-era Indiana. Jones recounted how he and his father argued about the issue of race, and he also stated that he did not speak to his father for "many, many years" after he refused to allow one of Jones's black friends to enter his house.
The unhappy marriage of Jones's parents came to an end when the couple finally separated in 1945 and eventually divorced. Jones relocated to Richmond with his mother, where he continued his high school education. Jones and his mother lost the financial support of their relatives following the divorce. To support himself, Jones began working as an orderly at Richmond's Reid Hospital in 1946. Jones was well-regarded by the senior management, but staff members later recalled that Jones exhibited disturbing behavior towards some patients and coworkers. Jones began dating a nurse-in-training named Marceline Baldwin while he was working at Reid Hospital.
In December 1948, Jones graduated from Richmond High School early with honors. He relocated to Bloomington, Indiana in November 1948, where he attended Indiana University Bloomington with the intention of becoming a doctor, but changed his mind shortly thereafter. During his time at University, Jones was impressed by a speech which Eleanor Roosevelt delivered about the plight of African-Americans, and he began to espouse support for communism and other radical political views for the first time.
Jones and Marceline Baldwin continued their relationship while he attended college, and the couple married on June 12, 1949. Their first home was in Bloomington, where Marceline worked in a nearby hospital while Jones attended college. Marceline was Methodist, and she and Jones immediately fell into arguments about church. Jones insisted on attending Bloomington's Full Gospel Tabernacle, but eventually compromised and began attending a local Methodist church on most Sunday mornings while attending Pentecostal churches Sunday evenings and weekdays.
Jones's strong opposition to the Methodist church's racial segregationist practices continued the strain their marriage. Through the years, their relationship was affected by Jones's insecurity. He often felt the need to test Marceline's love and loyalty, and at times he used sadistic methods to do so. In 1950, the couple unofficially adopted Marceline's nephew Ronnie, who they cared for over a four year period.
After attending Indiana University for two years, the couple relocated to Indianapolis in 1951. Jones took night classes at Butler University to continue his education, finally earning a degree in secondary education in 1961—ten years after enrolling. In 1951, the 20-year-old Jones began attending gatherings of the Communist Party USA in Indianapolis.
During the McCarthy hearings, Jones and his family faced harassment from government authorities. In one event, Jones's mother was harassed by FBI agents in front of her co-workers because she had attended an event with her son. Jones also became frustrated with the persecution of open and accused communists in the U.S., especially during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Reflecting back on his participation in the Communist Party, Jones said that he asked himself, "How can I demonstrate my Marxism? The thought was, infiltrate the church."
Peoples Temple
Beginnings in Indianapolis
In early 1952, Jones heard a sermon preached in the Methodist church that emphasized loving members of all races. Jones announced to his wife and her family that he would become a Methodist minister since he believed the church was ready to "put real socialism into practice." Jones was surprised when a Methodist district superintendent helped him get a start in the church, even though he knew Jones to be a communist.
In the summer of 1952, Jones was hired as student pastor to the children at the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church. Jones launched a project to create a playground that would be open to children of all races. Jones continued to visit and speak at Pentecostal churches while serving as Methodist student pastor. In early 1954 Jones was dismissed from his position in the Methodist Church, ostensibly for stealing church funds, though he later claimed he left the church because its leaders forbade him from integrating blacks into his congregation.
Around this time in 1953, Jones visited a Pentecostal Latter Rain convention in Columbus, Indiana where a woman at the convention prophesied that Jones was a prophet with a great ministry. Jones was surprised by the prophecy, but gladly accepted the call to preach and rose to the podium to deliver a message to the convention. Pentecostalism was in the midst of the Healing Revival and Latter Rain movements during the 1950s.
Jones began to press his wife to leave the Methodist church, believing that the Latter Rain movement, which was growing in size and racially integrated, offered him a greater opportunity to become a preacher. He convinced his wife by arguing that the Pentecostal churches were more accommodating to his views on racial integration. In 1953, Jones began attending and preaching at the Laurel Street Tabernacle in Indianapolis, a Pentecostal Assemblies of God church. The pastor of the church allowed Jones to hold healing revivals until 1955. Jones began to travel and speak and other churches in the Latter Rain movement, and was invited to speak at a Latter Rain convention in Detroit in 1953.
The Assemblies of God was strongly opposed to the Latter Rain movement. In 1955, they assigned a new pastor to the Laurel Street Tabernacle who enforced their denominational ban on healing revivals. This led Jones to leave the church and establish Wings of Healing, a charitable organization to promote his own ministry that would later be renamed Peoples Temple. Jones's new church only attracted twenty members who had come with him from the Laurel Street Tabernacle and was not able to financially support his vision. Jones saw a need for publicity, and began seeking a way to popularize his ministry and recruit members.
Latter Rain movement
Jones began closely associating with the Independent Assemblies of God (IAoG), an international group of churches that had embraced the Latter Rain movement. The IAoG had few requirements for ordaining ministers and were accepting of divine healing practices. In June 1955, Jones held his first joint meetings with William Branham, a healing evangelist and Pentecostal leader in the global Healing Revival.
In 1956, Jones was ordained as an IAoG minister by Joseph Mattsson-Boze, a leader in the Latter Rain movement and the IAoG. Jones quickly rose to prominence in the group. Working with the IAoG, Jones organized and hosted a healing convention to take place June 11–15, 1956, in Indianapolis's Cadle Tabernacle. Needing a well-known figure to draw crowds, he arranged to share the pulpit again with Reverend Branham.
Branham was known to tell supplicants their name, address, and why they came for prayer, before pronouncing them healed. Jones was intrigued by Branham's methods and began performing the same feats. Jones and Branham's meetings were very successful and attracted an audience of 11,000 at their first joint campaign. At the convention, Branham issued a prophetic endorsement of Jones and his ministry, saying that God had used the convention to send forth a new great ministry.
Many attendees in the campaign believed Jones's performance indicated that he had a supernatural gift, and coupled with Branham's endorsement, it led to rapid growth of People's Temple. Jones was particularly effective at recruitment among the African American attendees at the conventions. According to a newspaper report, regular attendance at Peoples Temple swelled to 1,000 thanks to the publicity Branham provided to Jones and Peoples Temple.
Following the convention, Jones renamed his church the "Peoples Temple Christian Church Full Gospel" to associate it with Full Gospel Pentecostalism; the name was later shortened to the Peoples Temple. Jones participated in a series of multi-state revival campaigns with Branham and Mattsson-Boze in the second half of the 1950s, making multiple joint appearances with them. Jones claimed to be a follower and promoter of Branham's "Message" during the period. Peoples Temple hosted a second international Pentecostal convention in 1957 which was again headlined by Branham. With the support of Branham and Mattsson-Boze, Jones was elected as President of the Pentecostal Convention Board in 1957, helping Jones secure connections throughout the movement.
During his time in the Latter Rain movement, Jones adopted one of their key doctrines which he would continue to promote for the rest of his life: the Manifested Sons of God, also known as the Joel's Army Prophecy. William Branham and the Latter Rain movement promoted the belief that God would be manifested in lives of humans by giving them supernatural gifts and superhuman abilities. They believed that such a manifestation was a sign of the end of the world, and that the people endowed with these special gifts would usher in a millennial age of heaven on earth. Jones was fascinated with the idea, and adapted it to promote his own utopian ideas and eventually the idea that he was himself a manifestation of God. By the late 1960s, Jones came to teach he was a manifestation of the "Christ the Revolution".
Branham was a major influence on Jones, and Jones subsequently adopted much of Branham's methods, doctrine, and style. Like Branham, Jones would later claim to be a return of Elijah the Prophet, the voice of God, and a manifestation of Christ, and promote the belief that the end of the world was imminent. Jones learned some of his most successful recruitment tactics from Branham. Jones eventually separated from the Latter Rain movement following a bitter disagreement with Branham in which Jones prophesied Branham's death. Their disagreement was possibly related to Branham's racial teachings or Branham's increasingly vocal opposition to communism.
Disciples of Christ
Through the Latter Rain movement, Jones became aware of Father Divine, an African American spiritual leader who was often derided by Latter Rain for his claims to divinity. In 1956, Jones made his first visit to investigate Father Divine's Peace Mission in Philadelphia. Jones was careful to explain that his visit the Peace Mission was so he could "give an authentic, unbiased, and objected statement" about its activities to his fellow ministers.
Divine served as another important influence on the development of Jones's ministry, particularly in how he structured the Peoples Temple leadership and organized mission work. After returning to Indianapolis, while publicly disavowing many of Father Divine's teachings, Jones began to implement many of the outreach practices he witnessed at the Peace Mission, including setting up a soup kitchen and providing free groceries and clothing to people in need.
At a second visit to Father Divine in 1958, Jones spent time learning how to manipulate members of the Peoples Temple. Divine told Jones to "find an enemy" and "to make sure they know who the enemy is" as it would unify those in the group and make them subservient.
Jones bragged to his congregation that he would like to be the successor of Father Divine and made many comparisons between their two ministries, primarily focusing on their community outreach programs. Jones also began progressively implementing the communal lifestyle and disciplinary practices he learned from Father Divine which increasingly took control over the lives of members of Peoples Temple.
As Jones gradually separated from Pentecostalism and the Latter Rain movement, he began seeking an organization that would be open to all of his beliefs. In 1960, Peoples Temple joined the Disciples of Christ denomination, whose headquarters was nearby in Indianapolis. In 1964, Archie Ijames, who had assured Jones that the organization would tolerate his political beliefs, participated in the ceremony to ordain Jones a Disciples of Christ minister.
Jones was ordained as a Disciples minister at a time when the requirements for ordination varied greatly and Disciples membership was open to any church. In both 1974 and 1977 the Disciples leadership received allegations of abuse at Peoples Temple. They conducted investigations at the time, but they found no evidence of wrongdoing, and Jones and Peoples Temple remained part of the Disciples until the Jonestown massacre. Disciples of Christ found Peoples Temple to be "an exemplary Christian ministry overcoming human differences and dedicated to human services." Peoples Temple contributed $1.1 million ($ in 2020 dollars) to the denomination between 1966 and 1977.
Racial integrationist
The New York Times reported that, in 1953:[D]eclaring that he was outraged at what he perceived as racial discrimination in his white congregation, Mr. Jones established his own church and pointedly opened it to all ethnic groups. To raise money, he imported monkeys and sold them door to door as pets. In 1960, Indianapolis Mayor Charles Boswell appointed Jones director of the local human rights commission. Jones ignored Boswell's advice to keep a low profile, however, finding new outlets for his views on local radio and television programs. The mayor and other commissioners asked him to curtail his public actions, but he resisted. Jones was wildly cheered at a meeting of the NAACP and Urban League when he yelled for his audience to be more militant, capping his speech with, "Let my people go!".
During this time, Jones also helped to racially integrate churches, restaurants, the telephone company, the Indianapolis Police Department, a theater, an amusement park, and the Indiana University Health Methodist Hospital. When swastikas were painted on the homes of two black families, Jones walked through the neighborhood comforting the local black community and counseling white families not to move.
He also set up sting operations to catch restaurants refusing to serve black customers and wrote to American Nazi Party leaders, passing their responses to the media. Jones was accidentally placed in the black ward of a hospital after a collapse in 1961, but refused to be moved; he began to make the beds and empty the bedpans of black patients. Political pressures resulting from Jones's actions caused hospital officials to desegregate the wards.
Jones received considerable criticism in Indiana for his integrationist views. Peoples Temple became a target of white supremacists. Among several incidents, a swastika was placed on the Temple, a stick of dynamite was left in a Temple coal pile, and a dead cat was thrown at Jones's house after a threatening phone call. Nevertheless, the publicity generated by Jones's activity helped attract a larger congregation. By the end of 1961, Indianapolis was a far more racially integrated city, and "Jim Jones was almost entirely responsible."
"Rainbow Family"
Jones and his wife adopted several non-white children, referring to the household as his "rainbow family", and stating: "Integration is a more personal thing with me now. It's a question of my son's future." He also portrayed the Temple as a "rainbow family". In 1954 the Joneses adopted Agnes, who was part Native American.
In 1959, they adopted three Korean-American children named Lew, Stephanie, and Suzanne, the latter of whom was adopted at age six, and encouraged Temple members to adopt orphans from war-ravaged Korea. Jones was critical of U.S. opposition to North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, calling the Korean War a "war of liberation" and stating that South Korea "is a living example of all that socialism in the north has overcome."
In June 1959, Jones and his wife had their only biological child, naming him Stephan Gandhi. In 1961, they became the first white couple in Indiana to adopt a black child, naming him Jim Jones Jr. (or James Warren Jones Jr.). They also adopted a white son, originally named Timothy Glen Tupper (shortened to Tim), whose birth mother was a member of the Temple. Jones also fathered Jim Jon (Kimo) with Temple member Carolyn Layton.
Relocating Peoples Temple
In 1961, Jones began to warn his congregation that he had received visions of a nuclear attack that would devastate Indianapolis. Jones's wife confided to her friends that he was becoming increasingly paranoid and fearful. Like other followers of William Branham who moved to South America during the 1960s, Jones may have been influenced by Branham's 1961 prophecy concerning the destruction of the United States in a nuclear war. Jones had begun to look for a way to escape the destruction he believed was imminent. In January 1962 he read an Esquire magazine article that purported South America to be the safest place to reside to escape any impending nuclear war, leading Jones to travel to South America to scout for a potential site to relocate the Peoples Temple.
Jones traveled with his family to Belo Horizonte, Brazil, with the idea of setting up a new Peoples Temple location. On his way to Brazil, Jones made his first trip to Guyana, which at the time was still a British colony. Jones's family rented a modest three-bedroom home in town. Jones studied the local economy and receptiveness of racial minorities to his message, although language remained a barrier.
He also explored local Brazilian syncretistic religions. Careful not to portray himself as a communist in a foreign territory, he spoke of an apostolic communal lifestyle rather than of Castro or Marx. Ultimately, the lack of resources in Belo Horizonte led the family to move to Rio de Janeiro in mid-1963, where they worked with the poor in the favelas. While scouting the region, Jones stopped briefly in Georgetown, Guyana where he held revival meetings.
Unable to find a location he deemed suitable for People's Temple, Jones became plagued by guilt for effectively abandoning the civil rights struggle in Indiana and possibly losing what he had tried to build there. During the year of his absence, Peoples Temple attendance declined from 400 to less than 100. Jones had demanded the Peoples Temple sent all its revenue to him in South America to support his efforts. The church went into debt to continue to support his mission until Archie Ijames sent word that the Temple was about to collapse without him, and threatened to resign if Jones did not soon return. Jones reluctantly returned to Indiana.
Jones returned from Brazil in December 1963 to find Peoples Temple bitterly divided. Financial issues and much smaller congregation forced Jones to sell the Peoples Temple church building and relocate to a smaller church nearby. To raise money, Jones briefly returned to the revival circuit, traveling and holding healing campaigns. After dealing with the issues at Peoples Temple, and possibly in part to distract from them, he told his Indiana congregation that the world would be engulfed by nuclear war on July 15, 1967, leading to a new socialist Eden on Earth, and that the Temple had to move to Northern California for safety.
With Jones's return, the majority of his congregation returned to Peoples Temple, dramatically improving their financial situation. During 1964 Jones made multiple trips to California to locate a suitable location to relocate. In July 1965, Jones and his followers began moving to their new location in Redwood Valley, California, near the city of Ukiah. Jones's assistant pastor, Russell Winberg, strongly resisted Jones's efforts to move the congregation and warned members of Peoples Temple that Jones was abandoning Christianity.
Winberg took over leadership of the Indianapolis church when Jones departed. The move resolved the divisions within the Indianapolis church through separation. About 140 of Jones's most loyal followers made the move to California, while the rest remained behind with Winberg.
In California, Jones was able to use his education degree from Butler University to secure a job as a history and government teacher at an adult education school in Ukiah. Jones used his position to recruit for Peoples Temple, teaching his students the benefits of Marxism and lecturing on religion. Jones planted loyal members of Peoples Temple in the classes to help him with recruitment. His efforts were successful, and Jones recruited 50 new members to Peoples Temple in the first few months. In 1967, Jones's followers coaxed another 75 members of the Indianapolis congregation to move to California.
In 1968, the Peoples Temple's California location was admitted to the Disciples of Christ. Jones began to use the denominational connection to promote Peoples Temple as part of the 1.5 million member denomination. He played up famous members of the Disciples, including Lyndon Johnson and J. Edgar Hoover, and misrepresented the nature of his position in the denomination. By 1969, Jones had increased the membership in Peoples Temple in California to 300.
Apostolic Socialism
Jones developed a theology that was significant influenced by the teachings of the Latter Rain movement, William Branham, and Father Divine, and infused with Jones's personal communist worldview. Jones referred to his belief as "Apostolic Socialism". Following the relocation of Peoples Temple to California, Jones began to gradually introduce the concepts of his doctrine to his followers. According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, Jones always spoke of the Social Gospel's virtues, but chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism until the late 1960s. By that time, he began partially revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons. Jones taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment", which he defined as socialism.
Jones asserted that traditional Christianity had an incorrect view of God. By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and referring to their belief in a "Sky God" who was "no God at all". Jones claimed to be following the true God who created all things.
Jones taught that ultimate reality was called the "Divine Principle", and this principle was the true God. Jones equated the principle with love, and he equated love with socialism. Jones asserted he was a savior sent by the true God, to rescue humanity from their sufferings. Jones insisted that accepting the "Divine Principle" was equivalent to being "crucified with Christ".
Jones increasingly promoted the idea of his own divinity, going so far as to tell his congregation that "I am come as God Socialist." Jones carefully avoided claiming divinity outside of Peoples Temple, but he expected to be acknowledged as god-like among his followers. Former Temple member Hue Fortson Jr. quoted him as saying:
What you need to believe in is what you can see.... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father.... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God.
Further criticizing traditional Christianity, Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible, and dismissing King James as a slave owner and a capitalist who was responsible for the corrupt translation of scripture. Jones claimed he was sent to share the true meaning of the gospel which had been hidden by corrupt leaders.
Jones rejected even the few required tenants of the Disciples of Christ denomination. Instead of implementing the sacraments as proscribed by the Disciples, Jones followed Father Divine's holy communion practices. Jones created his own baptismal formula, baptizing his converts "in the holy name of Socialism".
While in the United States, Jones remained fearful of the public discovering the full extent of his communist views. He believed that if the true nature of his views became widely known, he would quickly lose the support of political leaders and even face the possibility of Peoples Temple being ejected from the Disciples of Christ. Jones also feared losing the church's tax-exempt status and having to report his financial dealings to the Internal Revenue Service. Jones took care to always couch his socialist views in religious terms, such as "apostolic social justice". "Living the Acts of the Apostles" was his euphemism for living a communal lifestyle.
Jones warned his followers that an apocalyptic race war, genocide, and nuclear war was imminent. He said that Nazi fascists and white supremacists would put people of color into concentration camps. Jones claimed he was the messiah sent to save the people by giving them a place of refuge in his church. Drawing on a prophecy in the Book of Revelation, he taught that American capitalist culture was irredeemable "Babylon". Explaining the nature of sin, Jones stated, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin." He taught his followers the only way to escape the supposed imminent catastrophe was to accept his teachings, and that after the apocalypse was over, they would emerge to establish a perfect communist society.
Historian Jeff Guinn said, "It is impossible to know whether Jones gradually came to think he was God's earthly vessel, or whether he came to that convenient conclusion" to enhance his authority over his followers. In a 1976 phone conversation with John Maher, Jones alternately said he was an agnostic and an atheist. Marceline admitted in a 1977 New York Times interview that Jones was trying to promote Marxism in the U.S. by mobilizing people through religion, citing Mao Zedong as his inspiration: "Jim used religion to try to get some people out of the opiate of religion." She told the reporter that Jones had once slammed the Bible on the table yelling "I've got to destroy this paper idol!" Jones doctrines taught his followers that the ends justify the means and authorized them to achieve Jones's vision by any means necessary. Outsiders would later point to this aspect of Jones's teachings to allege that he was "morally bankrupt" and manipulating religion and other elements of society "to achieve his own selfish ends".
Jones continued to use fear to control and manipulate his followers in California. He frequently prophesied that fires, car accidents, and death or injuries would come upon anyone unfaithful to him and his teachings. Jones began using illicit drugs after moving to California, which further heightened his paranoia. He constantly told his followers that they needed to be crusaders in promoting and fulfilling his beliefs.
Jones frequently warned his followers that there was an enemy seeking to destroy them. The identify of that enemy changed over time from the Ku Klux Klan, to Nazis, to redneck vigilantes, to later the American government. Through his tactics, he successfully implemented a communal lifestyle among his followers that was directed by him and his lieutenants who were part of a committee called the Planning Commission.
Jones, through the Planning Commission, began controlling all aspects of the lives of his followers. Members who joined Peoples Temple were required to turn over all their assets to the church in exchange for free room and board. Members were also required to turn over all their income to be used for the benefit of the community. Jones directed groups of his followers to work on various projects to earn income for the People Temple and set up an agricultural operation in Redwood Valley to grow food. Jones organized large community outreach projects, taking his followers by bus to perform work community service across the region.
The first cases of serious abuse in Peoples Temple arose in California as the Planning Commission carried out discipline against members who were not fulfilling Jones's vision or following the rules. Jones's control over the members of Peoples Temple extended to their sex lives and who could be married. Some members were coerced to get abortions. Jones began to require sexual favors from the wives of some members of the church. Jones also raped several male members of his congregation.
Members who rebelled against Jones's control were punished with reduced food rations, harsher work schedules, public ridicule and humiliations, and sometimes with physical violence. As the Temple's membership grew, Jones created a security group to ensure order among his followers and to ensure his own personal safety. The group purchased security squad cars and armed their guards with rifles and pistols.
Focus on San Francisco
By the end of 1969, Peoples Temple was growing rapidly. Jones's message of economic socialism and racial equality, along with the integrated nature of Peoples Temple, proved attractive to many in California, especially students and racial minorities. By 1970, the Temple had opened branches in cities including San Fernando, San Francisco, and Los Angeles as Jones began shifting his focus to major cities across California because of limited expansion opportunities in Ukiah. He eventually moved the Temple's headquarters to San Francisco, which was a major center for radical protest movements. By 1973, Peoples Temple had reached 2,570 members, with 36,000 subscribers to its fundraising newsletter.
Jones also grew the Temple by purposefully targeting other churches. In 1970, Jones and 150 of his followers took a trip to San Francisco's Missionary Baptist Church. Jones held a faith healing revival meeting wherein he impressed the crowd by claiming to heal a man of cancer; his followers later admitted to helping him stage the "healing". At the end of the event, he began attacking and condemning Baptist teachings and encouraging the members to abandon their church and join him.
The event was successful, and Jones recruited about 200 new members for Peoples Temple. In a less successful attempt in 1971, Jones and a large number of his followers visited the tomb and shrine erected for Father Divine shortly after his death. Jones confronted Divine's wife and claimed to be the reincarnation of Father Divine. At a banquet that evening, Jones's followers seized control of the event and Jones addressed Divine's followers, again claiming that he was Father Divine's successor. Divine's wife rose up and accused Jones of being the devil in disguise and demanded he leave. Jones managed to recruit only twelve followers through the event.
Thanks to their growing numbers, Jones and Peoples Temple became influential in San Francisco politics, culminating in the Temple's instrumental role in George Moscone's election as mayor in 1975. Moscone subsequently appointed Jones as the chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. Jones was able to gain contact with prominent politicians at the local and national level. For example, he and Moscone met privately with vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane days before the 1976 election, leading Mondale to publicly praise the Temple.
First Lady Rosalynn Carter also met with Jones on multiple occasions, corresponded with him about Cuba, and spoke with him at the grand opening of the San Francisco headquarters—where he received louder applause than she did. Jones also forged alliances with key columnists and others at the San Francisco Chronicle and other press outlets that gave Jones favorable press during his early years in California.
In September 1976, Assemblyman Willie Brown served as master of ceremonies at a large testimonial dinner for Jones attended by Governor Jerry Brown and Lieutenant Governor Mervyn Dymally. At that dinner, Brown touted Jones as "what you should see every day when you look in the mirror" and said he was a combination of Martin Luther King Jr., Angela Davis, Albert Einstein, and Mao. Harvey Milk spoke to audiences during political rallies held at the Temple, and he wrote to Jones after one such visit:Rev Jim, It may take me many a day to come back down from the high that I reach today. I found something dear today. I found a sense of being that makes up for all the hours and energy placed in a fight. I found what you wanted me to find. I shall be back. For I can never leave.Jones hosted local political figures, including Davis, at his San Francisco apartment for discussions. He spoke with publisher Carlton Goodlett of the Sun-Reporter newspaper about his remorse over not being able to travel to socialist countries such as China and the Soviet Union, speculating that he could be Chief Dairyman of the U.S.S.R. Jones's criticisms led to increased tensions with the Nation of Islam, so he spoke at a large rally in the Los Angeles Convention Center that was attended by many of his closest political acquaintances, hoping to close the rift between the two groups.
Jonestown
Publicity problems
Jones began to receive negative press beginning in October 1971 when reporters covered one of Jones's divine healing services during a visit to his old church in Indianapolis. The news report led to an investigation by the Indiana State Psychology Board into Jones's healing practices in 1972. A doctor involved in the investigation accused Jones of "quackery" and challenged Jones to give tissue samples of the material he claimed fell off people when they were healed of cancer. The investigation caused alarm within the Temple.
Jones announced he was terminating his ministry in Indiana because it was too far from California for him to attend to and downplayed his healing claims to the authorities. The issue only escalated however, and Lester Kinsolving began running a series of articles targeting Jones and Peoples Temple in the San Francisco Examiner in September 1972. The stories reported on Jones's claims of divinity and exposed fraudulent "miracles" performed by Jones. To suppress the story, Jones had his followers purchase every copy of the Examiner from the stores in Ukiah to prevent the local community from seeing it.
In 1973, Ross Case, a former follower of Jones, began working with an informal Christian prayer group in Ukiah to investigate what was happening at Peoples Temple. They uncovered a staged healing, the abusive treatment of a woman in the church, and evidence that Jones raped a male member of his congregation. Case began reporting his findings to the local police, but they took no action. However, reports of Case's activity reached Jones, who became increasingly paranoid that the authorities were after him.
Shortly after, eight members of Peoples Temple made accusations of abuse against the Planning Commission and Peoples Temple staff members. They accused the members of Planning Commission of being homosexuals and questioned their true commitment to socialism, before leaving the Peoples Temple. Jones became convinced he was losing control and needed to relocate Peoples Temple to escape the mounting threats and allegations.
On December 13, 1973, Jones was arrested and charged with lewd conduct for allegedly masturbating in the presence of a male undercover LAPD vice officer in a movie theater restroom near Los Angeles's MacArthur Park. Jones allegedly motioned to the undercover officer to join him on the theater balcony where Jones was, but later followed the officer into the bathroom where the alleged incident occurred. On December 20, 1973, the charge against Jones was dismissed, though the details of the dismissal are not clear. Furthermore, the court file was sealed, and the judge ordered that records of the arrest be destroyed.
Formation
In the fall of 1973 Jones and the Planning Commission devised a plan escape the United States in the event of a raid by the government, and began to develop a longer-term plan to relocate Peoples Temple. The group decided on Guyana as a favorable location, citing its recent revolution and socialist government, and the favorable reaction Jones had received when he traveled there in 1963. In October, the group voted unanimously to set up an agricultural commune in Guyana. In December Jones and Ijames traveled to Guyana to find a suitable location.
By the summer of 1974 Peoples Temple had purchased land and supplies and Ijames was put in charge of preparing their new site for the first arrivals. Ijames oversaw the installation of a power generation station, clearance of fields for farming, and the construction of dormitories. In December 1974 Jones and the first group of settlers arrived in Guyana to start operating the commune that would become known as Jonestown.
Jones returned to the United States, leaving Ijames in charge of Jonestown, to continue his efforts to combat the negative press. His efforts were largely unsuccessful and more stories of the abuses at Peoples Temple began to leak to public. In March 1977, Marshall Kilduff published a story in New West magazine exposing abuses at the Peoples Temple. The article included allegations by Temple defectors of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
The article convinced Jones that it was time to permanently relocate to South America, and he began to compel members of Peoples Temple to make the move with him. Jones promoted the commune as a means to create both a "socialist paradise" and a "sanctuary" from the media scrutiny in San Francisco. Jones purported to establish it as a model communist community, adding that the Temple comprised "the purest communists there are". Jones did not permit members to leave the settlement.
Jonestown had about 50 settlers at the start of 1977 who were expanding the commune, but it was not yet ready to handle a large influx of settlers. Jones's lieutenant in Jonestown warned him that the facilities could only support 200 people, but Jones believed the need to relocate was urgent and was determined to begin moving. In May 1977, Jones and about 600 of his followers arrived in Jonestown; about 400 more would follow in the subsequent months. Jones also began moving the Temple's financial assets overseas and started to sell off property in the United States. The Peoples Temple had over $10 million ($ in 2020 dollars) in assets at the time.
Religious scholar Mary McCormick Maaga argues that Jones's authority among his followers decreased after the exodus to Jonestown because he was with them every day and he could not hide his drug addiction from rank-and-file members. In spite of the allegations prior to Jones's departure, he was still respected by some for setting up a racially integrated church which helped the disadvantaged; 68% of Jonestown residents were black. Jones began to propagate his belief in what he termed "Translation" once his followers settled in Jonestown, claiming that he and his followers would all die together, move to another planet, and live blissfully.
Mounting pressure and waning political support
Among the followers Jones took to Guyana was John Stoen. John's birth certificate listed Timothy Stoen and Grace Stoen as his parents. Jones had had a sexual relationship with Grace Stoen, and claimed he was the biological father of John. Grace Stoen left Peoples Temple in 1976, leaving her child behind. Jones ordered the child to be taken to Guyana in February 1977 to avoid a custody dispute with Grace. After Timothy Stoen also left Peoples Temple in June 1977, Jones kept the child at his own home in Jonestown.
In the autumn of 1977, Timothy Stoen and other Temple defectors formed a "Concerned Relatives" group because they had family members in Jonestown who were not being permitted to return to the United States. Stoen traveled to Washington, D.C., in January 1978 to visit with State Department officials and members of Congress, and wrote a white paper detailing his grievances against Jones and the Temple and to attempt to recover his son. His efforts aroused the curiosity of California Congressman Leo Ryan, who wrote a letter on Stoen's behalf to Guyanese Prime Minister Forbes Burnham. The Concerned Relatives also began a legal battle with the Temple over the custody of Stoen's son.
Most of Jones's political allies broke ties after his departure, though some did not. Willie Brown spoke out against the Temple's purported enemies at a rally that was attended by Harvey Milk and Assemblyman Art Agnos. On February 19, 1978, Milk wrote a letter to U.S. President Jimmy Carter defending Jones as "a man of the highest character", and claimed that Temple defectors were trying to "damage Rev. Jones's reputation" with "apparent bold-faced lies". Mayor Moscone's office issued a press release saying Jones had broken no laws.
On April 11, 1978, the Concerned Relatives distributed a packet of documents, letters, and affidavits to the Peoples Temple, members of the press, and members of Congress which they titled an "Accusation of Human Rights Violations by Rev. James Warren Jones". In June 1978, escaped Temple member Deborah Layton provided the group with a further affidavit detailing crimes by the Temple and substandard living conditions in Jonestown.
Jones was facing increasing scrutiny in the summer of 1978 when he hired JFK assassination conspiracy theorists Mark Lane and Donald Freed to help make the case of a "grand conspiracy" against the Temple by U.S. intelligence agencies. Jones told Lane that he wanted to "pull an Eldridge Cleaver", referring to a fugitive member of the Black Panthers who was able to return to the U.S. after rebuilding his reputation.
White Nights
Jones's paranoia and drug usage increased in Jonestown and he became fearful of a government raid on Jonestown. Concerned that the community would not be able to resist such an attack, he began holding drills to test their readiness. He called the drills "White Nights". Jones would call "Alert, Alert, Alert" over the community loudspeaker to call the community together in the central pavilion. He kept guards armed with guns and crossbows to protect the pavilion.
His followers would remain at the pavilion throughout the drill, in which he told them that evil agents had their community surrounded and were preparing to destroy them. Jones led them in prayers, chanting, and singing to ward off the impending attack. Sometimes he would have his guards hide in the forest and shoot their firearms to simulate an attack. Jones's followers were only told the attacks were a drill when the event was over, and were often terrified by the drills. One drill lasted for six days.
The drills served to keep the members of Jonestown fearful of venturing into the jungle outside of their commune. Following two visits by United States Embassy personnel to check on the situation at Jonestown, and an IRS investigation in early 1978, Jones became increasingly convinced that the attack he feared was imminent. In one 1978 White Night drill, Jones told his followers he was going to distribute poison for everyone to drink in an act of suicide. A batch of fruit punch was served to everyone in the pavilion who sat by waiting for their death, many crying. After some time passed, Jones informed his followers that it had all been a drill and there was not really any poison in their drink. Through the White Nights, Jones convinced his followers that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was actively working to destroy their community.
The situation at Jonestown was deteriorating in 1978. The majority of the community were minors or the elderly, and the few people of working age found it difficult to keep up with the work required to support the community. Healthcare, education, and food rations were all in limited supply and the situation was worsening. Jones's personal health was poor and his drug usage was becoming noticeable. His orders were increasingly erratic. He could often be seen staggering and his speech became slurred. His behavior also became more unusual, and he was seen urinating in public. His health became so poor that he found it difficult to walk without assistance.
Murder of Congressman Ryan
In November 1978, Congressman Ryan led a fact-finding mission to Jonestown to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses. His delegation included relatives of Temple members, an NBC camera crew, and reporters for several newspapers. The group arrived in the Guyanese capital of Georgetown on November 15.
Two days later, they traveled by airplane to Port Kaituma, then were transported to Jonestown in a tractor transporter. Jones hosted a reception for the delegation that evening at the central pavilion in Jonestown, during which Temple member Vernon Gosney passed a note meant for Ryan to NBC reporter Don Harris, requesting assistance for himself and another Temple member, Monica Bagby, in leaving the settlement. Tensions began to rise as news spread through the community that some members were attempting to leave. Ryan's delegation left hurriedly the afternoon of November 18, after Temple member Don Sly attacked the congressman with a knife, though the attack was thwarted. Ryan and his delegation managed to take along fifteen Temple members who had expressed a wish to leave, and Jones made no attempt to prevent their departure at that time.
As members of Ryan's delegation boarded two planes at the Port Kaituma airstrip, Jones's armed guards, called the "Red Brigade" led by Joe Wilson, Thomas Kice Sr. and Ronnie Dennis arrived on a tractor and trailer and began shooting at them. The gunmen killed Ryan and four others near a Guyana Airways Twin Otter aircraft. At the same time, one of the supposed defectors, Larry Layton, drew a weapon and began firing on members of the party inside the other plane, a Cessna, which included Gosney and Bagby. NBC cameraman Bob Brown was able to capture footage of the first few seconds of the shooting at the Otter, just before he himself was killed by the gunmen.
The five killed at the airstrip were Ryan, Harris, Brown, San Francisco Examiner photographer Greg Robinson, and Temple member Patricia Parks. Surviving the attack were future Congresswoman Jackie Speier, a Ryan staff member; Richard Dwyer, Deputy Chief of Mission from the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown; Bob Flick, an NBC producer; Steve Sung, an NBC sound engineer; Tim Reiterman, an Examiner reporter; Ron Javers, a Chronicle reporter; Charles Krause, a Washington Post reporter; and several defecting Temple members. They escaped into the jungle to avoid being killed.
Mass murder-suicide in Jonestown
Later the same day, November 18, 1978, Jones received word that his security guards had failed to kill all of Ryan's party. Jones concluded the escapees would soon inform the United States of the attack and they would send the military to seize Jonestown. Jones called the entire community to the central pavilion. He informed the community that Ryan was dead and it was only a matter of time before military commandos descended on their commune and killed them all.
Jones recorded the entire event on audio tape. On that tape, Jones tells Temple members that the Soviet Union, with whom the Temple had been negotiating a potential exodus for months, would not give them passage after the airstrip shooting. According to Jones, men would "parachute in here on us", "shoot some of our innocent babies," and "they'll torture our children, they'll torture some of our people here, they'll torture our seniors."
With that reasoning, Jones and several members argued that the group should commit "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced grape-flavored Flavor Aid. Jones had taken large shipments of cyanide into Jonestown for several years prior to November 1978, having obtained a jeweler's license that would allow him to purchase the compound in bulk to purportedly clean gold.
One Temple member, Christine Miller, dissented toward the beginning of the tape. When members apparently cried, Jones counseled, "Stop these hysterics. This is not the way for people who are socialists or communists to die. No way for us to die. We must die with some dignity." Jones can be heard saying, "Don't be afraid to die", adding that death is "just stepping over into another plane", and adding that death is "a friend".
Jones's wife Marceline apparently protested killing the children. She was forcibly restrained and then joined the other adults in poisoning herself. At the end of the tape, Jones concludes: "We didn't commit suicide; we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world."
Eighty-five members of the community survived the event. Some members slipped into the jungle just as the death ritual began; one man hid in a ditch. One elderly woman hid in her dormitory and slept through the event, awaking to find everyone dead. The Jonestown basketball team was away at a game and survived. Others hid in the dormitories or were away from the community on business when the death ritual unfolded.
A drink consisting of Flavor Aid mixed with cyanide was created and handed out to the members of the community to drink. Those who refused to drink were injected with cyanide via syringe. The mass murder-suicide left dead 909 inhabitants of Jonestown, 304 of them children, mostly in and around the central pavilion. This resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until September 11, 2001. The FBI later recovered a 45-minute audio recording of the mass poisoning in progress.
Death and aftermath
Following the mass murder-suicide, Jones was found dead at the stage of the central pavilion; he was resting on a pillow near his deck chair with a gunshot wound to his head which Guyanese coroner Cyril Mootoo said was consistent with suicide. Jones's body was later moved outside the pavilion for examination and embalming. The official autopsy conducted in December 1978 confirmed Jones's cause of death as suicide. His son Stephan speculated that his father may have directed someone else to shoot him. The autopsy showed high levels of the barbiturate pentobarbital in Jones's body, which may have been lethal to humans who had not developed physiological tolerance. Jones's body was cremated and his remains were scattered in the Atlantic Ocean.
The military of Guyana arrived in Jonestown after the massacre to find the dead. The United States military organized an airlift to bring the dead back to the United States to be buried.
Lew, Agnes, and Suzanne Jones
Jones's children Lew and Agnes Jones both died at Jonestown. Agnes was 35 years old at the time of her death. Her husband Forrest, and four children, Billy, Jimbo, Michael and Stephanie, all died at Jonestown. Lew, who was 21 years old at the time of his death, died alongside his wife Terry and son Chaeoke. Stephanie Jones had died at age five in a car accident in May 1959.
Suzanne Jones and her husband Mike Cartmell had both turned against the Temple and were not in Jonestown on the day of the murder-suicide. After her decision to abandon the Temple, Jones referred to Suzanne openly as "my damned, no-good-for-nothing daughter" and said she was not to be trusted. In a signed note found at the time of her death, Marceline directed that Jones's funds were to be given to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and specified: "I especially request that none of these are allowed to get into the hands of my adopted daughter, Suzanne Jones Cartmell." Cartmell had two children and died of colon cancer in November 2006.
John Stoen and Kimo
Specific references to Timothy Stoen, the father of John Victor Stoen, including the logistics of possibly murdering him, are made on the Temple's final "death tape", as well as a discussion over whether the Temple should include John Victor among those committing "revolutionary suicide". At Jonestown, John Victor Stoen was found poisoned inside Jones's cabin.
Jim Jon (Kimo) and his mother, Carolyn Layton, both died during the events at Jonestown.
Surviving sons
Stephan, Jim Jr., and Tim Jones survived the events of November 18, 1978, because they were members of the Peoples Temple's basketball team; they were playing an away game in Georgetown at the time of the mass poisoning. Stephan and Tim were both 19, and Jim Jones Jr. was 18. Tim's biological family, the Tuppers, which consisted of his three biological sisters, Janet, Mary and Ruth, biological brother, Larry and biological mother, Rita, all died at Jonestown. Three days before the tragedy, Stephan refused, over the radio, to comply with an order by his father to return the team to Jonestown for Ryan's visit.
During the events at Jonestown, Stephan, Tim, and Jim Jones Jr. drove to the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown in an attempt to receive help. Guyanese soldiers guarding the embassy refused to let them in after hearing about the shootings at the Port Kaituma airstrip. Later, the three returned to the Temple's headquarters in Georgetown to find the bodies of Sharon Amos and her three children, Liane, Christa and Martin. Guyanese soldiers kept the Jones brothers under house arrest for five days, interrogating them about the deaths in Georgetown.
Stephan was accused of being involved in the Georgetown deaths and was placed in a Guyanese prison for three months. Tim and Johnny Cobb, another member of the Temple basketball team, were asked to go to Jonestown and help identify bodies. After returning to the U.S., Jim Jones Jr. was placed under police surveillance for several months while he lived with his older sister, Suzanne, who had previously turned against the Temple.
When Jonestown was first being established, Stephan had avoided two attempts by his father to relocate him to Jonestown. He eventually moved to Jonestown after a third attempt. He has since stated that he gave in to his father's wishes because of his mother. Stephan later became a businessman, married, and had three daughters. Although he appeared in the documentary Jonestown: Paradise Lost, which aired on the History Channel and Discovery Channel, he has stated he will not watch it and has never grieved for his father. One year later, Stephan appeared in the documentary Witness to Jonestown where he responds to rare footage shot inside the Temple.
Jim Jones Jr., who lost his wife and unborn child at Jonestown, returned to San Francisco. He remarried and has three sons from this marriage, including Rob Jones, a high-school basketball star who went on to play for the University of San Diego before transferring to Saint Mary's College of California.
Reactions and legacy
The events at Jonestown were immediately subject to extensive news coverage. As news of the Jonestown reached the public, outsiders refused to accept Jones's attempt to blame them for the deaths. Critics and apologists offered a variety of explanations for the events that transpired among Jones's followers. The Soviet Union publicly distanced itself from Jones and what they referred to his "bastardization" of the concept of revolutionary suicide.
American Christian leaders denounced Jones as Satanic and asserted that he and his teachings were in no way connected to traditional Christianity. In an article entitled "On Satan and Jonestown", Billy Graham argued that it would be a mistake to identify Jones and his cult as Christian. Graham was joined by other prominent Christian leaders in alleging that Jones was demonically possessed.
The Disciples of Christ issued a press release disavowing Jones and reported that the community Jonestown was not affiliated with their denomination. They subsequently created a procedure to remove congregations from their denomination, which they used to expel Peoples Temple. Disciples responded to the Jonestown deaths with significant changes for ministerial ethics and with a process to remove ministers.
In the immediate aftermath, rumors arose that surviving members of Peoples Temple in San Francisco had organized hit squads to target critics and enemies of the church. Law enforcement intervened to protect the media and other figures who were purported to be targeted. Peoples Temple's San Francisco headquarters was besieged by the media, angry protestors, and family members of the dead. Archie Ijames, who had returned to take leadership in San Francisco earlier in 1978 was left to address the public. At first he denied that Jones had any connection to the deaths and alleged the events were a plot by enemies of the church. Ijames later came to acknowledge the truth.
The supporters of the church, especially politicians, had a difficult time explaining their connections to Jones following the deaths. After a period of reflection, some admitted they had been tricked by Jones. President Carter and the first lady sought to minimize their connections to Jones. San Francisco Mayor George Moscone said he vomited when he heard of the massacre, and called the friends and families of many of the victims to apologize and offer his sympathies. Moscone was assassinated only a short time later.
Investigations into the Jonestown massacre were conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Congress. Although individual and groups had contacted the FBI about Peoples Temple over the year, the FBI had never launched any investigation before the massacre occurred. Their investigation primarily focused on the failure of authorities, especially the United States State Department, to have been aware of the abuses in Jonestown. Although Peoples Temple collapsed shortly after the events of 1978, some individuals still continued to follow Jones teachings and look to his prophecies for guidance during the 1980s.
Since the events of the Jonestown Massacre, a massive amount of literature and study has been produced on the subject. Jim Jones and the events at Jonestown have had a defining influence on society's perception of cults. The widely known expression "Drinking the Kool-Aid" originated in the events at Jonestown, although the specific beverage used at the massacre was Flavor Aid rather than Kool-Aid.
In popular culture
Documentaries
Jonestown: Mystery of a Massacre (1998)
Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple (2006)
Jonestown: Paradise Lost (2007)
CNN Presents: Escape From Jonestown (2008)
Seconds from Disaster, episode (season 6, episode 1) "Jonestown Cult Suicide" (2012)
Witness to Jonestown (2013)
Jonestown: The Women Behind the Massacre (2018)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018)
605 Adults 304 Children (2019), short documentary filmed entirely by the Peoples Temple at Jonestown
Television
Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980), fact-based miniseries. Powers Boothe won an Emmy for his portrayal of Jones.
American Horror Story: Cult (2017)
Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle (2018), a documentary produced for Sundance TV.
Very Scary People (season 1, episode 6) "Jim Jones: Unholy Massacre" (2019)
Corrupt Crimes (season 1, episode 79) "Deadly Religion" (2016)
Film
Guyana: Crime of the Century a.k.a. Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), fictionalized exploitation film (depicted here as 'Reverend James Johnson')
The Sacrament (2013), a found-footage horror film (depicted here simply as 'Father'; in addition, Jonestown has been renamed 'Eden Parish')
Jonestown (2013), an independent short film which dramatizes the last 24 hours in the lives of Jones (played here by Leandro Cano) and The Peoples Temple Church through the eyes of a reporter.
The Jonestown Haunting (2020)
Two biopics are in the works about Jones and Jonestown, one, Jim Jones, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as Jones, and another, titled White Night, based on Deborah Layton's memoir Seductive Poison, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Jones and Chloë Grace Moretz as Layton.
Fiction literature
Jonestown, by Wilson Harris. London: Faber and Faber, 1996.
We Agreed to Meet Just Here, by Scott Blackwood. Kalamazoo, Michigan: West Michigan University Press, 2009.
Children of Paradise, by Fred D'Aguiar. New York: HarperCollins, 2014.
Before White Night, by Joseph Hartmann. Richmond, Virginia: Belle Isle Books, 2014.
White Nights, Black Paradise, by Sikivu Hutchinson. Infidel Books, 2015.
Beautiful Revolutionary, by Laura Elizabeth Woollett. London: Scribe. 2018.
Music
"Brother Jonesie" by The Citations from their album Taking a Cruise with The Citations (1980)
"Ballad of Jim Jones" by The Brian Jonestown Massacre from their album Thank God for Mental Illness (1996)
"Carnage in the Temple of the Damned" by Deicide from their album Deicide (1990)
"Guyana (Cult of the Damned)" by Manowar from their album Sign of the Hammer (1984)
"Hypnotized" by Heathen from their album Victims of Deception (1991)
"Jimmie Jones" by The Vapors from their album, Magnets (1981)
"Jonestown" by The Acacia Strain, from their album Wormwood (2010)
"Jonestown" by Concrete Blonde, from their album Mexican Moon (1993)
"Jonestown" by Evan Williams, at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (2015)
"Jonestown" by Frank Zappa, from his album Boulez Conducts Zappa: The Perfect Stranger (1984)
"Koolaid" by Accept, from their album The Rise of Chaos (2017)
"Last Call in Jonestown" by Polkadot Cadaver, from their album Last Call in Jonestown (2013)
"Reverend" by Church of Misery, from their album Early Works Compilation (2011)
"Guyana Punch" by The Judy's, from their album Washarama (1981)
"Jim Jones" by SKYND from their EP Chapter 2 (2019)
Poetry
Bill of Rights, by Fred D'Aguiar. London: Chatto & Windus, 1998.
The Jonestown Arcane, by Jack Hirschman. Los Angeles: Parentheses Writing Series, 1991.
Jonestown Lullaby, by Teri Buford O'Shea. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2011.
Jonestown and Other Madness, by Pat Parker. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985.
I. at Jonestown, by Lucille Clifton. Next. Brockport: BOA, 1989.
Theater
The Peoples Temple. Written by Leigh Fondakowski, with Greg Pierotti, Stephen Wangh, and Margo Hall. Premiered in 2005
See also
Jonestown
Peoples Temple
Drinking the Kool-Aid
Messiah complex
Doomsday Cult
Notes
Footnotes
References
Further reading
Bebelaar, Judy and Ron Cabral. "And Then They Were Gone: Teenagers of Peoples Temple". Sugartown Publishing, 2018. .
Brinton, Maurice. "Suicide for socialism?" Brinton's analysis of the bizarre mass suicide of a socialist cult led by American Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana, which discusses the dynamics of political sects in general.
Fagan, Kevin. November 12, 1998. "Haunted by Memories of Hell. San Francisco Chronicle.
Hatfield, Larry D. November 8, 1998. "Utopian nightmare Jonestown: What did we learn?", with contributions by Gregory Lewis, Eric Brazil, and Judy Canter. San Francisco Examiner.
Isaacson, Barry. "From Silver Lake to Suicide: One Family's Secret History of the Jonestown Massacre ". LA Weekly.
Kahalas, Laurie Efrein. April 8, 1999. "Jonestown: Dismantling the Disinformation". New Dawn 53. Kahalas is an -year member of the Peoples Temple who was living in the Temple building in San Francisco when tragedy struck.
Kilduff, Marshall, and Phil Tracy. August 1, 1977. "Inside Peoples Temple". Used by permission of authors for the San Francisco Chronicle.
Lattin, Don. February 2, 2012. "The End To Innocent Acceptance Of Sects Sharper scrutiny is Jonestown legacy". San Francisco Chronicle.
Litke, Larry Lee. [1980] 2019. "The Downfall of Jim Jones". Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple.
Nakao, Annie. January 23, 2012. "The ghastly Peoples Temple deaths shocked the world. Berkeley Rep takes on the challenge of coming to terms with it". SF Chronicle.
Rapaport, Richard. Jonestown and City Hall slayings eerily linked in time and memory Both events continue to haunt city a quarter century later.
Szasz, Thomas S. February 5, 1979. "The Freedom Abusers". Inquiry.
Taylor, Michael. November 12, 1998. "Jonestown: 25 Years Later How spiritual journey ended in destruction: Jim Jones led his flock to death in jungle". San Francisco Chronicle.
— "Jones Captivated S.F.'s Liberal Elite: They were late to discover how cunningly he curried favor". San Francisco Chronicle.
Taylor, Michael and Don Lattin. February 3, 2012. And Most Peoples Temple Documents Still Sealed". San Francisco Chronicle
Zane, Maitland. November 13, 1998. "Surviving the Heart of Darkness: Twenty years later, Jackie Speier remembers how her companions and rum helped her endure the night of the Jonestown massacre". San Francisco Chronicle.
External links
The Jonestown Institute
FBI No. Q 042 The "Jonestown Death Tape", recorded November 18, 1978 (Internet Archive)
Transcript of Jones's final speech, just before the mass suicide
Jonestown Audiotape Primary Project: Transcripts
"Jim Jones". Encyclopædia Britannica. [2002] 2020.
The first part of a series of articles about Jim Jones published in the San Francisco Examiner in 1972.
History Channel Video and Stills
"Mass Suicide at Jonestown: 30 Years Later". Time.
Jonestown 30 Years Later, photo gallery published Friday, October 17, 2008.
American Experience. 2007. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple. US: PBS. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
Alternative Considerations of Jonestown & Peoples Temple
20th-century American criminals
20th-century apocalypticists
1931 births
1978 deaths
1978 suicides
Activists for African-American civil rights
Activists from Indiana
American agnostics
American anti-war activists
American anti–Vietnam War activists
American atheists
American communists
American conspiracy theorists
American emigrants to Brazil
American emigrants to Guyana
American faith healers
American former Christians
American male criminals
American mass murderers
American murderers of children
American people of Welsh descent
American rapists
American revolutionaries
American socialists
Bisexual men
Butler University alumni
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) clergy
Converts from Methodism
Criminals from Indiana
Deaths by firearm in Guyana
Founders of new religious movements
Founders of utopian communities
People from Randolph County, Indiana
People from Richmond, Indiana
Peoples Temple
Religious leaders from the San Francisco Bay Area
Self-declared messiahs
Suicides by firearm
Suicides in Guyana
LGBT people from Indiana
American people of Irish descent
LGBT Protestant clergy
Anti-Americanism | true | [
"The Zapple doctrine pertained to a particular sort of political speech in the United States, for which a candidate or his supporters bought air time but the candidate himself did not actually participate in the broadcast. The content could be supportive of the candidate, or be used to criticize his political opponent(s). It went into effect in 1970.\n\nThe Zapple doctrine came into existence as an addition to the FCC fairness doctrine. The fairness doctrine was a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) policy instated in June 1949. It required broadcasters to present multiple viewpoints about controversial matters of public importance. For the first time, radio station licensees were permitted to editorialize, but only if two or more perspectives were included. (The fairness doctrine replaced the previous Mayflower doctrine, which did not allow any editorial content at all.)\n\nOrigin\nThe FCC's political broadcasting rules required that equal time be offered to all political candidates, and only to the candidates. Candidate supporters and spokespeople were excluded from the provisions of the equal-time rule.\n\nIn May 1970, U.S. Senate Commerce Committee counselor Nicholas Zapple argued to the FCC that the fairness doctrine must also be applicable to a political candidate's spokesperson and supporters. In other words, if one candidate's supporters were allowed to buy air time, then supporters of opposing candidates should have the opportunity to buy a comparable amount of air time for their candidate(s). Similarly, if a broadcasting station gave free air time to a political candidate, then that broadcaster should be required to offer free coverage to the opposing candidate too. \n\nIn order to uphold the spirit of the fairness doctrine, the FCC responded by ruling that all similar parties must have \"quasi-equal opportunity\", that is, they should be treated similarly. This decision became known as the Zapple ruling, and eventually, the Zapple doctrine. Under the terms of Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934, 23 FCC 2d 707 (1970), the Zapple doctrine applied to purchase of broadcast time by major political party candidates only.\n\nDemise of the fairness doctrine\nBy 1985, the FCC was concerned that the fairness doctrine might have a chilling effect, which was the very opposite of the policy's original intent of encouraging fair and balanced coverage: \"In order to avoid the requirement to go out and find contrasting viewpoints on every issue raised in a story, some journalists simply avoided any coverage of some controversial issues.\" In addition, journalists felt that it infringed on their rights of free speech under the First Amendment. In August 1985, the FCC decided to suspend the fairness doctrine (it was an FCC policy but not mandated by Congress).\n\nZapple doctrine 1985–2014\nAlthough the fairness doctrine was suspended, the Zapple doctrine remained in effect as an FCC ruling for the next three decades.\n\nWisconsin election complaint\nOn May 23, 2012, the FCC was asked to respond to a political programming complaint, made against a broadcast licensee, Capstar TX LLC (a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications, now iHeartMedia) by supporters of Tom Barrett, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Wisconsin. The Barrett supporters alleged that Capstar would not give them any free airtime on its radio station WISN (AM), in order to respond to statements previously aired on WISN in support of Scott Walker, the Republican candidate for office in the 2012 election. Walker's supporters had received free air time from WISN and its affiliate WTMJ (AM) for political campaigning purposes. Barrett supporters based their complaint on WISN's violation of the Zapple doctrine.\n\nThe FCC responded on May 8, 2014, acknowledging that WISN had refused to provide air time to Barrett campaign supporters, in violation of the Zapple doctrine. However, the FCC ruled that there was no violation of the law: \"Given the fact that the Zapple Doctrine was based on an interpretation of the fairness doctrine, which has no current legal effect, we conclude that the Zapple Doctrine similarly has no current legal effect.\"\n\nUnenforcable\nIn re: Capstar TX LLC was the catalyst for the FCC's decision that the Zapple doctrine was not enforcable.\n\nThe agency [FCC] tasked with protecting the public interest in broadcasting has decided that WISN and WTMJ, two publicly-licensed radio stations in Milwaukee, were allowed to give away all the free time they wanted to the supporters of one candidate (in this case, Gov. Walker), without allowing supporters of his Democratic recall opponent (Tom Barrett) any free airtime at all.\n\nReferences\n\nMass media regulation\nPolitical mass media in the United States\nUnited States communications regulation\nBroadcast law\nFederal Communications Commission",
"Old Indonesia Derby (commonly known as El Clasico Indonesia or Indonesia Super Big Match) is the name given in football to any match between fierce rivals Persija Jakarta and Persib Bandung. The rivalry between the two teams began to heat up since the 2000s. with the hostility of supporters, and has spread both sides as a prestigious match in Indonesian Football.\n\nOrigin \nBefore Indonesia's independence, in 1930 a football association in Indonesia called the Inlandsche Stedenwedstrden was held, the football clubs Persib Bandung and Persija Jakarta met several times, but the matches were normal. After Indonesia's independence, clubs in Indonesia began to form again and a football association in Indonesia was again organized called the Perserikatan in 1950 to 1995. At that time meetings between the two clubs were also rare, Persib Bandung had several hot matches but with PSMS Medan, the competition they can be called a classic derby, Persib Bandung several times stepped into the final which was held at the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium and their supporters always filled the stands, Persija Jakarta at that time did not have many fans, until in the late 1990s Persija Jakarta fans were formed, in the 2000s clashes between supporters often occurred and caused problems, here the competition spread to teams and clubs until now many events occur.\n\nResults\n\nOfficial match results \n\nSource: \n\nData Incomplete\n\nPerserikatan era\n\nLiga Indonesia era\n\nHead-to-head results overall\nUpdate 1 Maret 2022Data Incomplete\n\nRecords \nData from 2007-08 Liga Indonesia Premier DivisionAs 10 July 2019\n\nMost appearances\n Players in bold are still active\n\nTop goalscorer\n Players in bold are still active\n\nClean sheet\n Players in bold are still active\n\nMen in both teams\nNote: \n Since Liga Indonesia era (1994 - present)\n Players in bold are still active\n\nPlayers who played for both clubs\n\nPersija then Persib\n\nPersib then Persija\n\nHead coaches who coached for both clubs\n \nsource:\n\nHonours\n\nSupporters\nTheir supporters have never met after the start of hostilities between supporters of Persija and Persib in the 2000s, to date. Many conflicts occur including the death of one of the supporters and clashes which resulted in injury.\n\nPersija Jakarta\nPersija Jakarta's supporters called The Jakmania. Founded in 1997 by Gugun Gondrong and Ferry Indrasjarief with orange colour as their identity. The Jakmania is one of the biggest football club supporters in Indonesia.\n\nPersib Bandung\nPersib Bandung fans often refer to themselves as Bobotoh, this name comes from the Sundanese language. Literally as people provide support, spirit and encouragement, for those who do the match. There are several groups of Persib Bandung supporters but the most famous and the beginning of hostility with Persija Jakarta supporters is the Viking Persib Club (VPC).\n\nTragedy \nTwo biggest tragedy occurred on March 5 2012, when Rangga Cipta Nugraha was beaten to the ground with a stadium bench only because he cheered happily when the Persib player scored, some say that the blood on his head did not stop pouring even until he was put into a grave.\n\nAnother tragedy happened on September 23, 2018, when before the match begins, one of the Jakmania members, Haringga Sirla, was killed by some unscrupulous host fans. Condolences for Haringga also flowed from the netizens throughout social media. In response to the incident, the Football Association of Indonesia forced Persib Bandung to pay a IDR 100 million (US$6,634) fine and play the remainder the team's home matches of the 2018 season behind closed doors.\n\nReconciliation\nUntil now, many parties want these two supporters to unite, but there are still many who provoke either from The Jakmania or Bobotoh, whether on social media or in real life. The dark past makes these two supporters difficult to unite, even to the point that there is a slogan, \"Biarkan Permusuhan Ini Tetap Abadi\", which means, \"Let This Feud Remain Eternal\" from one of the main figure Bobotoh frontman.\n\nSee also\nSports rivalry\nList of association football rivalries\nNationalism and sport\nLiga 1 (Indonesia)\nEastern Green and Western Green Derby\n\nReferences\n\nPersija Jakarta\nPersib Bandung\nIndonesia Super League\nSport in Jakarta\nBandung"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout"
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | What happened to Jessica in 2000? | 1 | What happened to Jessica Alba in 2000? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"\"What Happened to Us\" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy, featuring English recording artist Jay Sean. It was written by Sean, Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim and Israel Cruz. \"What Happened to Us\" was leaked online in October 2010, and was released on 10 March 2011, as the third single from Mauboy's second studio album, Get 'Em Girls (2010). The song received positive reviews from critics.\n\nA remix of \"What Happened to Us\" made by production team OFM, was released on 11 April 2011. A different version of the song which features Stan Walker, was released on 29 May 2011. \"What Happened to Us\" charted on the ARIA Singles Chart at number 14 and was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). An accompanying music video was directed by Mark Alston, and reminisces on a former relationship between Mauboy and Sean.\n\nProduction and release\n\n\"What Happened to Us\" was written by Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz and Jay Sean. It was produced by Skaller, Cruz, Rohaim and Bobby Bass. The song uses C, D, and B minor chords in the chorus. \"What Happened to Us\" was sent to contemporary hit radio in Australia on 14 February 2011. The cover art for the song was revealed on 22 February on Mauboy's official Facebook page. A CD release was available for purchase via her official website on 10 March, for one week only. It was released digitally the following day.\n\nReception\nMajhid Heath from ABC Online Indigenous called the song a \"Jordin Sparks-esque duet\", and wrote that it \"has a nice innocence to it that rings true to the experience of losing a first love.\" Chris Urankar from Nine to Five wrote that it as a \"mid-tempo duet ballad\" which signifies Mauboy's strength as a global player. On 21 March 2011, \"What Happened to Us\" debuted at number 30 on the ARIA Singles Chart, and peaked at number 14 the following week. The song was certified platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), for selling 70,000 copies. \"What Happened to Us\" spent a total of ten weeks in the ARIA top fifty.\n\nMusic video\n\nBackground\nThe music video for the song was shot in the Elizabeth Bay House in Sydney on 26 November 2010. The video was shot during Sean's visit to Australia for the Summerbeatz tour. During an interview with The Daily Telegraph while on the set of the video, Sean said \"the song is sick! ... Jessica's voice is amazing and we're shooting [the video] in this ridiculously beautiful mansion overlooking the harbour.\" The video was directed by Mark Alston, who had previously directed the video for Mauboy's single \"Let Me Be Me\" (2009). It premiered on YouTube on 10 February 2011.\n\nSynopsis and reception\nThe video begins showing Mauboy who appears to be sitting on a yellow antique couch in a mansion, wearing a purple dress. As the video progresses, scenes of memories are displayed of Mauboy and her love interest, played by Sean, spending time there previously. It then cuts to the scenes where Sean appears in the main entrance room of the mansion. The final scene shows Mauboy outdoors in a gold dress, surrounded by green grass and trees. She is later joined by Sean who appears in a black suit and a white shirt, and together they sing the chorus of the song to each other. David Lim of Feed Limmy wrote that the video is \"easily the best thing our R&B princess has committed to film – ever\" and praised the \"mansion and wondrous interior décor\". He also commended Mauboy for choosing Australian talent to direct the video instead of American directors, which she had used for her previous two music videos. Since its release, the video has received over two million views on Vevo.\n\nLive performances\nMauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" live for the first time during her YouTube Live Sessions program on 4 December 2010. She also appeared on Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight on 23 February 2011 for an interview and later performed the song. On 15 March 2011, Mauboy performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Sunrise. She also performed the song with Stan Walker during the Australian leg of Chris Brown's F.A.M.E. Tour in April 2011. Mauboy and Walker later performed \"What Happened to Us\" on Dancing with the Stars Australia on 29 May 2011. From November 2013 to February 2014, \"What Happened to Us\" was part of the set list of the To the End of the Earth Tour, Mauboy's second headlining tour of Australia, with Nathaniel Willemse singing Sean's part.\n\nTrack listing\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Just Witness Remix) – 3:45\n\nCD single\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Album Version) – 3:19\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (Sgt Slick Remix) – 6:33\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:39\n\nDigital download – Remix\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Jay Sean (OFM Remix) – 3:38\n\nDigital download\n \"What Happened to Us\" featuring Stan Walker – 3:20\n\nPersonnel\nSongwriting – Josh Alexander, Billy Steinberg, Jeremy Skaller, Rob Larow, Khaled Rohaim, Israel Cruz, Jay Sean\nProduction – Jeremy Skaller, Bobby Bass\nAdditional production – Israel Cruz, Khaled Rohaim\nLead vocals – Jessica Mauboy, Jay Sean\nMixing – Phil Tan\nAdditional mixing – Damien Lewis\nMastering – Tom Coyne \nSource:\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly chart\n\nYear-end chart\n\nCertification\n\nRadio dates and release history\n\nReferences\n\n2010 songs\n2011 singles\nJessica Mauboy songs\nJay Sean songs\nSongs written by Billy Steinberg\nSongs written by Jay Sean\nSongs written by Josh Alexander\nSongs written by Israel Cruz\nVocal duets\nSony Music Australia singles\nSongs written by Khaled Rohaim",
"Alone is a 2020 American thriller film directed by John Hyams, from a screenplay by Mattias Olsson. The film stars Jules Willcox as a young woman who desperately tries to escape a homicidal stalker (Marc Menchaca) in the wilderness. It was released in the United States on September 18, 2020, by Magnet Releasing.\n\nPlot\nJessica, a recent widow, is moving. She keeps encountering a mysterious man in several places: on the highway, at a gas station, a motel, then ultimately when she crashes her car, due to her tire being slashed. He drugs her, then takes her to his cabin where he locks her in the basement. \n\nJessica wakes up and he forces her to tell him what happened to her husband. She reveals that her husband killed himself using a gun. The next morning, she hears the man leaving and notices that the key is still in the keyhole on the other side. She slides her sweater underneath the door and uses a stray nail to push the key out. She frees herself and hides in an upstairs closet when the man comes back. She overhears him speaking to his wife and kids on the phone, lying about where he is and that he'll be back soon. Once he goes downstairs, she flees outside.\n\nThe man realizes what has happened and a chase ensues. She injures her foot and they face off at the river, where she jumps in to escape. Injured, wet, and cold, she meets a man named Robert who is out hunting. He helps her to his car and offers her food, water, and his wife's hiking boots as she is barefoot. As they are driving, they come to a stop where a tree has fallen, blocking the road. As they get out of the car, the man arrives, making up a story that Jessica is his sister. The man then kills Robert with his rifle.\n\nThe chase continues, the man now armed with Robert's hunting rifle. Jessica hides in a cave at night to get out of the rain, but the man spots her and shoots her in the shoulder. She hides in a small pond. The man tries to goad her into coming out by talking about her husband's suicide but gives up when she doesn't come out and leaves. \n\nThe next day, while the man is disposing of Robert's body, Jessica climbs into his car. While looking for the car keys, she finds the man's phone. She steals it and climbs in the trunk as the man returns to the vehicle. While he is driving, Jessica dials 911, trying to whisper to the operator what happened to her.\n\nThe man sees that his phone is missing and stops the car. He realises that she is in the trunk. Armed with a tire iron, Jessica leaps from the backseat and attacks, striking him in the head multiple times. The man starts driving and uses his hunting knife to attack Jessica, but she wrestles the knife away from him and stabs his arm. The man crashes the car, flipping it over.\n\nDazed, Jessica climbs out and spots a search and rescue helicopter looking for her. She runs after it into a clearing. She uses the man's phone to call his wife. She reveals that he is trying to kill her and has murdered Robert. The man follows Jessica into the clearing. Jessica puts the phone on speaker and taunts the man with it. In one final showdown, Jessica, armed with the tire iron, and the man, armed with the hunting knife, run at each other. After a struggle, Jessica stabs the man and watches him, smiling as he dies. As she lies exhausted, the helicopter descends from above.\n\nCast \n Jules Willcox as Jessica\n Marc Menchaca as The Man A.K.A Sam\n Anthony Heald as Robert\n\nReception\n\nBox office and VOD \nAlone was released in the United States on September 18, 2020 in theaters and on video-on-demand. It grossed $182,473 from 173 theaters in its opening weekend. It was also the most rented film on Google Play, fourth on FandangoNow, and ninth on Apple TV. In its second weekend the film ranked third at Google Play, fourth at FandangoNow, and sixth at Apple TV, then its third weekend finished second at Google Play, third at FandangoNow, eighth at AppleTV, and tenth at Spectrum.\n\nCritical response \nOn review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The website's critics consensus reads: \"Alones minimalistic approach makes this heightened thriller a gripping and suspenseful experience.\" On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100 based on nine critics, indicating \"generally favorable reviews\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal Links \n\n2020 films\n2020 thriller films\nAmerican films\nAmerican thriller films\n2020s English-language films"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know."
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | what is breakout? | 2 | what is breakout in regards to Jessica Alba? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"The following is a list of Teen Choice Award winners and nominees for Choice Breakout Artist. The award is sometimes divided into Choice Male Breakout Artist, Choice Female Breakout Artist and Choice Breakout Group.\n\nWinners and nominees\n\n1999\n\n2000s\n\n2010s\n\nReferences\n\nBreakout Artist\nMusic awards for breakthrough artist",
"Tell Us the Truth is the debut album by English punk rock band Sham 69, released in 1978. The first side of the album was recorded live in concert, while the other was recorded in the studio. Tell Us the Truth includes one of Sham 69's biggest hits, \"Borstal Breakout\", on the live side of the album. The album peaked at number 25 on the UK Albums Chart.\n\nTell Us the Truth and the band's second album That's Life were re-released in 1989 as a double LP.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Jimmy Pursey and Dave Parsons\nLive side\n \"We Got a Fight\"\n \"Rip Off\"\n \"Ulster\"\n \"George Davis Is Innocent\"\n \"They Don’t Understand\"\n \"Borstal Breakout\"\nStudio side\n \"Family Life\"\n \"Hey Little Rich Boy\"\n \"I’m a Man, I’m a Boy\"\n \"What About the Lonely?\"\n \"Tell Us the Truth\"\n \"It’s Never Too Late\"\n \"Who's Generation!\"\nCaptain Oi! bonus tracks\n \"What Have We Got\" (live)\n \"I Don't Wanna\"\n \"Red London\"\n \"Ulster\" (single version)\n \"Borstal Breakout\" (single version)\n \"George Davis Is Innocent\" (demo)\n \"They Don't Understand\" (demo)\n \"Borstal Breakout\" (demo)\n\nPersonnel\nSham 69\nJimmy Pursey – vocals, production, liner notes\nDave Parsons – guitars, liner notes\nDave Tregunna – bass guitar\nMark \"Dodie\" Cain – drums\n\nTechnical\nPeter Wilson – production\nBrian Burrows – remixing\nSteve Hammonds – project coordinator\nJo Mirowski – art direction, design\nAlwyn Clayden – package design\nMartyn Goddard – photography\nBarry Plummer – photography\n\nCharts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n1978 debut albums\nSham 69 albums\nPolydor Records albums\nSire Records albums"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know."
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Besides being about Jessica Alba, Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\""
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | What movie was the award for? | 4 | What movie was Jessica Alba's MTV Movie Award for? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"The Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Short Film, officially known as Efere Ozako Award for Best Short Film, is an annual merit by the Africa Film Academy to reward the best short films for the year. It was introduced in the 4th Africa Movie Academy Awards, but no film was rewarded because the jury didn't deem any of the nominee fit for the award. No submitted film was nominated for the award in 2009. At the 10th Africa Movie Academy Awards, the award category was renamed to honor the memory of renowned entertainment lawyer Efere Ozako.\n\nReferences\n\nLists of award winners\nAfrica Movie Academy Awards",
"Of Good Report is a 2013 South African romantic thriller film, directed by Jahmil X.T. Qubeka. The film had Mothusi Magano and Petronella Tshuma in lead roles. At the 10th Africa Movie Academy Awards, it had the most nominations and awards, and won the Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Film. The film was screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.\n\nIn July 2013, at the 34th Durban International Film Festival, the film which was originally chosen to open the festival was announced to have been banned by the National Film and Video Foundation for containing \"child pornography\", this decision was later overturned after an appeal by the producers of the film.\n\nCast \n Mothusi Magano as Parker Sithole\n Petronella Tshuma as Nolitha Ngubane\n Tshamano Sebe as Vuyani \n Lee-Ann Van Rooi as Const. Arendse \n Tina Jaxa as Headmistress \n Thobi Mkhwanazi as Squeeza \n Nomhle Nkonyeni as Landlady \n Lihlebo Magugu as Sipho \n Frances Ndlazilwana as Grandmother \n Mary Twala as Esther Sithole\n\nPlot \nThe film tells a story of an inappropriate and obsessive romantic relationship between a high school teacher and one of his female student.\n\nReception\n\nReviews \nGuy Lodge for Variety praised the attempt by Qubeka in the script that captures concerns of post apartheid South Africa that is not based on racial segregation, but violence and patriarchal sexuality. The adoption of black and white sequence of images, as opposed to coloured was also highlighted as adding a positive uniqueness to the film. He summarized its review by stating \"Jahmil X.T. Qubeka's striking but grisly feature swerves wildly from obsessive student-teacher romance into splattery horror.\"\n\nPeter Bradshaw for The Guardian rated it 4/5, applauding the story, linearity and the entire atmosphere of the film. Deborah Young for Hollywood Reporter explained \"Qubeka's unconventional talent makes sparks fly in a raw thriller that gently mocks genre and leaves a troubling after-taste\".\n\nAccolades \n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Film (won)\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Director (won)\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor (won)\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Most Promising Actor (won)\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Screenplay (won)\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Editing\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Cinematography\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Sound\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Visual Effects\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Soundtrack\n Africa Movie Academy Award for Best Production Design\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nXhosa-language films\nSouth African romantic thriller films\n2010s romantic thriller films"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\"",
"What movie was the award for?",
"an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City,"
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | Was she in any other TV shows? | 5 | Was Jessica Alba in any other TV shows, besides Sin City? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | true | [
"Sandra Sirois is a Francophone Canadian TV and radio host, and an author.\n\nBackground\nSirous was born in Montreal, Quebec and graduated from the University of Montreal in 2008. Between 2008 and 2011, she worked as a freelance writer for many French Canadian magazines and websites. During those years, Sandra Sirois also travelled around the world and visited more than 30 countries.\n\nShe has hosted various TV and radio shows in Quebec.\n\nTelevision\nFrom 2011 until 2013, she hosted the game shows Call TV and l’Instant Gagnant on Quebec's TV channel V télé. In English, she hosted the TV show Game Time in 2012, which was broadcast on TLN Network. During the same year, she was also one of the main hosts of Quiz Zone, a game show aired on C TV, the national television network of the Republic of Trinidad-and-Tobago.\n\nBetween 2014 and 2015, Sandra Sirois was hosting the morning TV show À l'affiche, which is broadcast on ADR TV.\n\nFor several years, she has been hosting several TV shows on MAtv network in the province of Québec. Between 2016 and 2019, she was a weather presenter at MétéoMédia and a news reporter for RDI.\n\nIn 2020, Sandra Sirois hosted a documentary series about the issues of period around the world in France.\n\nBooks\nSandra Sirois is the author of two novels, Sam perd la carte, in 2017 and Sam perd la tête, in 2019.\n\nReferences\n\n1986 births\nCanadian television hosts\nCanadian women television hosts\nPeople from Montreal\nLiving people",
"Geographically Speaking was an American travel series that debuted on June 9, 1946, on NBC, and aired Sundays at 8:15 pm EST immediately following the game show Face to Face.\n\nOriginating at WNBT-TV in New York City, the weekly 15-minute program was one of the first TV shows to have a regular sponsor, Bristol-Myers. The show consisted of hostess Zetta Wells narrating her home movies of her trips with her husband Carveth Wells to unusual and exotic places. When she ran out of home movies, the series ended in December 1946.\n\nEpisode status\nNo episode of the series is known to survive in any archive, as it was broadcast live and there was no way to record live TV until the development of kinescopes in 1947. Even then, only a few TV shows were recorded.\n\nSee also\n1946-47 United States network television schedule\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1946 American television series debuts\n1946 American television series endings\nAmerican travel television series\nBlack-and-white American television shows\nEnglish-language television shows\nLost television shows\nNBC original programming"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\"",
"What movie was the award for?",
"an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City,",
"Was she in any other TV shows?",
"Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel."
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | What character did she play in the show? | 6 | What character did Jessica Alba play in the show Dark Angel? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | true | [
"Ozioma Akagha is an actor based in the United States. She voices Alyx Vance in the video game Half-Life: Alyx (2020) and Julianna in the video game Deathloop (2021). She also plays the role of Harper Omereoha in the television show Delilah.\n\nCareer\nAkagha attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where she majored in theatre. In the early 2010s, she acted in theatrical productions in California. In 2010, she played Tiger Lily in the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts's production of Peter Pan. In 2011, she acted alongside Brendan Cataldo in Leo Cortez's play, Acting Out, at the Alisal Center for the Fine Arts. In 2012, Akagha began playing the leads in various short films and making guest appearances in television series. She appeared in one-off episodes in the series Men at Work, Nashville and 2 Broke Girls.\n\nAkagha started voice acting in video games around 2016, first voicing the character \"Plastic\" in the game Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. In 2017, she was a voice actor for Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, in which she provided voices for characters Barbara Casey, Zena Woodard, and Angela Cummings.\n\nIn 2018, she began appearing in Marvel's Runaways television series as Tamar, a recurring, supporting role. She provided the voice for the hero Bumblebee in the animated series Teen Titans Go! Bumblebee initially appeared in the show's fifth season in the episode \"Forest Pirates\", which aired in 2019.\n\nAkagha voiced the main character, Alyx Vance, in the virtual reality game Half-Life: Alyx. The character was first introduced in the game Half-Life 2 in 2004, being originally played by Merle Dandridge. A new actor was chosen for Alyx Vance partially due to the character's younger age and the \"time gap\" between this and the previous game. Akagha began recording for the role in September 2019, and the game was released in 2020.\n\nIn the 2021 video game Deathloop, Akagha voiced Julianna, one of two main characters and the main antagonist in the game. She also played Harper Omereoha in the OWN drama television series, Delilah, which started airing in 2021.\n\nIn the sixth episode of Marvel's animated anthology, What If...?, Akagha played the part of Wakandan princess Shuri. The episode, titled \"What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?\", aired in 2021. She also voiced the recurring role of Flora Flamingo in the 2021 children's show, Do, Re & Mi.\n\nHonors\nIn 2021, Akagha was nominated for the Golden Joystick Awards in the category of Best Performer for voicing the character Julianna Blake in Deathloop. For the same role, she was also nominated for Best Performance at The Game Awards 2021, and for the Great White Way Award for Best Acting in a Game at the New York Game Awards 2022.\n\nFilmography\n\nVideo games\n\nTelevision\n\nAccolades\n\nExternal links\n\nReferences\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nYear of death missing\nVoice actors\nVideo game actors\nVideo game actresses\nVoice actresses",
"The phrase \"said the actress to the bishop\" is a colloquial and vulgar British exclamation, offering humor by serving as a punch line that exposes an unintended double entendre. An equivalent phrase in North America is \"that's what she said\". The versatility of such phrases, and their popularity, lead some to consider them clichéd.\n\nHistory and variations\nThe term, or its variant \"as the actress said to the bishop\", is British in origin. It supposedly originated from a conversation between the actress Lillie Langtry and the Bishop of Worcester. They were at a country house weekend party and on Sunday morning before church, they went for a stroll in the garden. On their walk, the bishop cut his finger on a rose thorn. Over lunch, Lillie enquired about his injury, asking: \"How is your prick?\" To which, the Bishop replied: \"Throbbing\", causing the butler to drop the potatoes. Its form is well known as a \"Wellerism\", acquiring that name from Charles Dickens’ character Sam Weller, who regularly employs it in The Pickwick Papers. \nThe phrase was in popular usage in the Royal Air Force c. 1944–47, but may originate from the Edwardian era. Playwright Tom K. Elitch is credited with coining the term in the late 19th century. \n\nThe phrase is frequently used by the fictional character Simon Templar (alias \"The Saint\") in a long-running series of mystery books by Leslie Charteris. The phrase first appears in full in the second Saint novel Enter the Saint, published in 1930; abbreviations of both the phrase (\"as the actress said on an auspicious occasion\") and\nof the alternative version (\"as the bishop said\") appear in the 1928 Meet the Tiger.\n\nThe version \"as the girl said to the soldier\" appears in a recorded sound test for Alfred Hitchcock's 1929 film Blackmail.\n\nKingsley Amis uses the line in his 1954 novel Lucky Jim, where a woman offering relationship advice to Jim Dixon says \"I can't show you, as the actress said to the bishop.\"\n\nThe title character on the US TV show Archer, after several seasons of using \"phrasing!\" to draw attention to double entendres, briefly toyed with \"...said Ripley to the android Bishop\", a reference to both this phrase and the 1986 film Aliens.\n\nBritish comic artist Brian Bolland did a comic about these two characters since 1985.\n\nThat's what she said! \nBy 1973, \"that's what she said\" had already been characterized as an \"ancient one-liner\". In the early 1990s, it was a recurring joke in the Saturday Night Live sketch \"Wayne's World\". In the movie of the same name, the character, Wayne Campbell, uses the phrase after his partner Garth says, \"Hey, are you through yet? 'Cause I'm getting tired of holding this\", in regard to a picture he is holding.\n\nIn the original BBC version of The Office, Ricky Gervais's character David Brent frequently used the phrase \"as the actress said to the bishop\" as an inappropriate joke. When the show was adapted for American audiences, also under the title \"The Office\", the phrase was translated to \"that's what she said\" for Steve Carell's character Michael Scott. \"That's what she said\" (with an emphasis on the word \"she\") became a catchphrase of The Office and was used for the show's \"That's What She Said\" Sweepstakes. On several occasions, the phrase was adapted to \"that’s what he said\".\n\nMatthew R. Meier of West Chester University of Pennsylvania and Christopher A. Medjesky of the University of Findlay have argued that \"such off-hand, common remarks such as 'that's what she said' jokes are deeply entrenched in modern society, and contribute to humorizing and legitimizing sexual misconduct.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n English phrases\n Quotations from film\nComedy catchphrases"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\"",
"What movie was the award for?",
"an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City,",
"Was she in any other TV shows?",
"Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel.",
"What character did she play in the show?",
"genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara,"
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | What else can you tell me about her time on this show? | 7 | Aside from playing super-soldier Max Guevara, What else can you tell me about Jessica Alba's time on Dark Angel? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" is a song by American singer-songwriter Sophie B. Hawkins, which was released in 1994 as the second single from her second studio album Whaler. The song was written by Hawkins and produced by Stephen Lipson. \"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" peaked at No. 36 on the UK Singles Chart and remained in the Top 100 for five weeks.\n\nCritical reception\nOn its release, Music & Media noted: \"Like the wind blows the leaves off the trees, Hawkins constantly pulls pop songs out of her bag.\" In a review of Whaler, Jim Farber of The Daily News wrote: \"Tracks like 'Right Beside You' and 'Don't Don't Tell Me No' chirp happily along with coquettish flair and great hook appeal.\" Dave Younk of St. Cloud Times described the song as \"excellent\" with \"the most incredible a cappella ending that seems to pleasantly go on forever\".\n\nTrack listing\nCD single\n\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" (Album Version) - 4:52\n\"Right Beside You\" (The Grid 7\" Mix) - 3:38\n\"Right Beside You\" (The Grid Dub Mix) - 8:40\n\"Big Beautiful Bottom in My Face\" - 2:55\n\nCD and cassette single\n\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" (Album Version) - 4:52\n\"Swing from Limb to Limb (My Home Is Your Jungle)\" (Album Version) - 4:15\n\nCD single (UK CD #2)\n\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" (Album Version) - 4:52\n\"I Need Nothing Else\" (Album Version) - 4:15\n\"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\" (Album Version) - 5:24\n\"Right Beside You\" (The Grid 12\" Mix) - 8:35\n\nCD single (European promo)\n\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" - 4:52\n\n12\" single (UK release)\n\"Don't Don't Tell Me No\" (Album Version) - 4:52\n\"Swing from Limb to Limb (My Home Is Your Jungle)\" - 4:15\n\"Right Beside You\" (The Grid 12\" Mix) - 8:35\n\"Right Beside You\" (The Grid 7\" Mix) - 3:38\n\nPersonnel\nDon't Don't Tell Me No\n Sophie B. Hawkins - vocals, keyboards, programming\n Stephen Lipson - bass, programming\n Peter Vettese - keyboards\n Neil Conti - drum set\n\nProduction\n Stephen Lipson - producer on \"Don't Don't Tell Me No\", \"Right Beside You\", \"Swing from Limb to Limb\" and \"I Need Nothing Else\"\n Heff Moraes - engineer on \"Don't Don't Tell Me No\", \"Right Beside You\", \"Swing from Limb to Limb\" and \"I Need Nothing Else\"\n Sophie B. Hawkins - producer, recording and mixing on \"Big Beautiful Bottom in My Face\"\n Rick Chertoff, Ralph Schuckett - producers of \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\"\n Steve Churchyard, David Leonard - mixing on \"Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover\"\n The Grid - remixes of \"Right Beside You\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n1994 songs\n1994 singles\nSophie B. Hawkins songs\nColumbia Records singles\nSongs written by Sophie B. Hawkins\nSong recordings produced by Stephen Lipson",
"What a Man My Man Is is a studio album by country singer Lynn Anderson, released in late 1974.\n\nThe album's title song, \"What a Man My Man Is\", was very successful, hitting No. 1 on the country charts in the last week of 1974. The song would be her last No. 1 hit and last entry on the pop music Hot 100 chart. It was the only single from the album.\n\nThe cover shows Anderson in a cowgirl hat and, in the background, another photo of Anderson holding her hat, walking on a hill. This album consisted of 11 tracks, some of which were new songs and some of which were cover versions. Covers include Olivia Newton-John's \"I Honestly Love You,\" Sami Jo's \"Tell Me a Lie,\" and Kris Kristofferson's \"Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends.\" Anderson's mother, Liz Anderson, wrote one song for this album, \"I Feel Like a New Man Today.\" Anderson's husband at the time, Glenn Sutton, produced this album and wrote or co-wrote four of its tracks, including the title track.\n\nThis album reached No. 18 on the \"Top Country Albums\" chart, but failed to make an appearance on the Billboard 200 album chart, unlike her previous albums.\n\nTrack listing\n\"What a Man My Man Is\" (Glenn Sutton)\n\"I Honestly Love You\" (Peter Allen, Jeff Barry)\n\"Everything's Falling In Place (For Me and You)\" (Murry Kellum, Larry Cheshire)\n\"Tell Me a Lie\" (Barbara Wyrick, Charles Buckins)\n\"Someone to Finish What You Started\" (Glenn Sutton, Arthur Leo Owens)\n\"Everybody's Somebody's Fool\" (Howard Greenfield, Jack Keller)\n\"I Won't Go Back to Denver\" (Glenn Sutton, Arthur Leo Owens)\n\"Please Don't Tell Me How the Story Ends\" (Kris Kristofferson)\n\"Walk Me to the Door\" (Conway Twitty)\n\"Where Is All That Love You Talked About\" (Glenn Sutton, Gene Vowel, Arthur Leo Owens)\n\"I Feel Like a New Man Today\" (Liz Anderson)\n\nReferences\n\n1974 albums\nLynn Anderson albums\nAlbums produced by Glenn Sutton\nColumbia Records albums"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\"",
"What movie was the award for?",
"an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City,",
"Was she in any other TV shows?",
"Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel.",
"What character did she play in the show?",
"genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara,",
"What else can you tell me about her time on this show?",
"Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002."
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | Was she in any other shows? | 8 | Was Jessica Alba in any other shows, besides Dark Angel? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"Judy Martin is a Tennessee Walking Horse trainer. Martin trained the World Grand Champion Shades of Carbon, and was Tennessee Walking Horse Trainer of the Year in 1976. She also judged horse shows.\n\nLife and career\nJudy Wiser was born to Winston Wiser and his wife Katherine. Winston Wiser was a notable Tennessee Walking Horse trainer who won five World Grand Championships on three horses, including Merry Go Boy and Go Boy's Shadow.\nJudy married Joe Martin. The couple ran a training and show stable in Shelbyville, Tennessee, and trained the black stallion Shades of Carbon, who was owned by Glen Loe.\nOriginally ridden in shows by Joe Martin, Shades of Carbon won the Two-Year-Old World Championship at the Tennessee Walking Horse National Celebration in 1972.\nThe following year, Judy Martin took over Shades of Carbon's training. She showed him to the Three-Year-Old World Championship in 1973, and the Four-Year-Old World Championship in 1974. In the spring of 1975 Mark of Carbon and Martin won the stake in the Spring Celebration.\n\nShades of Carbon won the World Grand Championship in 1976, making Martin only the second woman to win the stake, after Betty Sain in 1966. Martin said after the win, \"I don't feel any different from any other trainer. I compete against these boys all the time.\"\nIn 1976, Judy Martin was named Trainer of the Year by the Walking Horse Trainers' Association.\n\nAfter her World Grand Championship, Martin continued to train and compete in the Celebration.\nShe also judged Tennessee Walking Horses in shows, from small one-day competitions to major shows including the Celebration. In 2003 she was named director of judges for the National Horse Show Commission.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nPeople from Shelbyville, Tennessee\nTennessee Walking Horse breeders and trainers\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Elfrida von Nardroff (July 3, 1925 – November 11, 2021) was an American game show contestant. In 1958, she won $220,500 () on the game show Twenty-One, more money than any other contestant on the show. Later it was revealed that there was cheating on the game show and von Nardroff committed perjury in Grand Jury proceedings.\n\nEarly life \nElfrida von Nardroff was born on July 3, 1925, in Northampton, Massachusetts, to Robert (1895–1966), a physics professor at Columbia University, and Elizabeth von Nardroff.\n\nShe went to the college-preparatory school, Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey. She graduated from Duke University, earning an AB degree. From 1959 to 1963 she earned an ABD degree in sociology from Columbia University Graduate School. She also studied literature at Oxford and Cambridge universities in England.\n\nCareer \nAfter graduation, from 1951 to 1958, she worked in personnel positions including two years for Northwest Airlines. In 1956 she received a call from a talent scout with the company who produced the game show Twenty-One. In 1958, she won $220,500 on the show, more money than any other contestant, and ($2,127,191.73) in 2021 dollars. She planned to use the money to attend school for a PhD in psychology. \n\nShe appeared on the game show in 1958 and then took a job in the advertising industry from 1963 to 1980. She completed her working career retiring from a New York City real estate broker.\n\nGame show scandal \n\nShortly after her win, the game show was under investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, Frank S. Hogan, following a revelation that one of the contestants had been coached. Von Nardroff had claimed that she had done research at the New York Public Library filling notebooks, but Hogan's investigation found that claim to be false.\n\nIt was discovered that Twenty-One had been paying some contestants to lose. The trouble began when a losing contestant did not receive compensation that was promised to him. The man went to the media and revealed the game show's scheme. \n\nVon Nardroff was called to testify before a grand jury on November 12, 1958. She denied receiving any assistance. In 1958 she was also quoted in Life speaking about other contestants on the show, \"They were respectable and intelligent people, it is inconceivable they could have been fixed.\" The investigation prompted ratings for all quiz shows to fall and by October 1958, Twenty-One was off the air. \n\nShe appeared before another grand jury in January 1959 to explain her multiple phone calls with the game show's producer Albert Freedman. She testified that she was only telling Freedman about her location. \n\nIn 1962, von Nardroff pleaded guilty to second-degree perjury along with 12 other former contestants. She received a suspended sentence.\n\nDeath \n\nVon Nardroff died of a stroke on November 11, 2021, in a hospice in Westhampton Beach, New York.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Elfrida Von Nardroff\n\n1925 births\n2021 deaths\nPeople from Northampton, Massachusetts\nColumbia University alumni\nDuke University alumni\nDwight-Englewood School alumni\nAlumni of the University of Cambridge\nAlumni of the University of Oxford\nContestants on American game shows\nAmerican perjurers"
] |
[
"Jessica Alba",
"2000-2008: Breakout",
"What happened to Jessica in 2000?",
"I don't know.",
"what is breakout?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"she received an MTV Movie Award for \"Sexiest Performance.\"",
"What movie was the award for?",
"an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City,",
"Was she in any other TV shows?",
"Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel.",
"What character did she play in the show?",
"genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara,",
"What else can you tell me about her time on this show?",
"Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002.",
"Was she in any other shows?",
"Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel."
] | C_a0f73204a9714dcc8f6b15e30a4190f9_0 | Did those do well? | 9 | Did Fantastic Four and it's sequel do well? | Jessica Alba | Her big break came when writer/director James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of 1,200 candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the Fox sci-fi television series Dark Angel. Co-created by Cameron, the series starred Alba, and ran for two seasons until 2002. Alba earned critical acclaim for her role in the show, receiving a Golden Globe nomination as well as the Teen Choice Award for "Choice Actress" and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Alba's film roles have included playing an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey, and an exotic dancer Nancy Callahan in Sin City, for which she received an MTV Movie Award for "Sexiest Performance." Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, in Fantastic Four and its sequel. She also starred in Into the Blue (2005), Good Luck Chuck (2007) and Awake (2007). Alba hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code. In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba has been represented by Brad Cafarelli. Also in 2008, Alba made her acting transition to the horror-film genre in The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original. The film was released on February 1, 2008. Though the film was not well received by critics, Alba's performance itself received mixed reviews. She won a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller and a Razzie Award for Worst Actress-nomination. Later in 2008, Alba starred alongside Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake in The Love Guru. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Jessica Marie Alba ( ; born April 28, 1981) is an American actress and businesswoman. She began her television and movie appearances at age 13 in Camp Nowhere and The Secret World of Alex Mack (1994), and rose to prominence at age 19 as the lead actress of the television series Dark Angel (2000–2002), for which she received a Golden Globe nomination.
Her big screen breakthrough came in Honey (2003). She soon established herself as a Hollywood actress, and has starred in numerous box office hits throughout her career, including Fantastic Four (2005), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Good Luck Chuck (2007), The Eye (2008), Valentine's Day (2010), Little Fockers (2010), and Mechanic: Resurrection (2016). She is a frequent collaborator of director Robert Rodriguez, having starred in Sin City (2005), Machete (2010), Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (2011), Machete Kills (2013), and Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). From 2019 to 2020, Alba starred in the Spectrum action crime series L.A.'s Finest.
In 2011, Alba co-founded The Honest Company, a consumer goods company that sells baby, personal and household products. Magazines including Men's Health, Vanity Fair and FHM have included her on their lists of the world's most beautiful women.
Early life
Jessica Marie Alba was born in Pomona, California on April 28, 1981, the daughter of Catherine Louisa (née Jensen) and Mark David Alba. Her mother has Danish, Welsh, German, English and French ancestry, while her paternal grandparents, who were born in California, were both the children of Mexican immigrants. She has a younger brother, Joshua. Her third cousin, once removed, is writer Gustavo Arellano. Her father's Air Force career took the family to Biloxi, Mississippi, and Del Rio, Texas, before settling back in Claremont, California, when she was nine years old. Alba has described her family as being a "very conservative family – a traditional, Catholic, Latin American family" and herself as very liberal; she says she had identified herself as a "feminist" as early as age five.
Alba's early life was marked by a multitude of physical maladies. During childhood, she suffered from pneumonia four to five times a year and had partially collapsed lungs twice as well as a ruptured appendix and tonsillar cyst. She has also had asthma since she was a child. Alba became isolated from other children at school because she was in the hospital so often from her illnesses that no one knew her well enough to befriend her. She has said that her family's frequent moving also contributed to her isolation from her peers. Alba graduated from Claremont High School at age 16 and subsequently attended the Atlantic Theater Company.
Acting career
1992–1999: Beginnings
Alba expressed an interest in acting from the age of five. In 1992, the 11-year-old Alba persuaded her mother to take her to an acting competition in Beverly Hills, where the grand prize was free acting classes. Alba won the grand prize, and took her first acting lessons. An agent signed Alba nine months later. Her first appearance on film was a small role in the 1994 feature Camp Nowhere as Gail. She was originally hired for two weeks but her role turned into a two-month job when one of the prominent actresses dropped out.
Alba appeared in two national television commercials for Nintendo and J. C. Penney as a child. She was later featured in several independent films. She branched out into television in 1994 with a recurring role as the vain Jessica in three episodes of the Nickelodeon comedy series The Secret World of Alex Mack. She then performed the role of Maya in the first two seasons of the 1995 television series Flipper. Under the tutelage of her lifeguard mother, Alba learned to swim before she could walk, and she was a PADI-certified scuba diver, skills which were put to use on the show, which was filmed in Australia.
In 1998, she appeared as Melissa Hauer in a first-season episode of the Steven Bochco crime-drama Brooklyn South, as Leanne in two episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, and as Layla in an episode of Love Boat: The Next Wave. In 1999, she appeared in the Randy Quaid comedy feature P.U.N.K.S.. After Alba graduated from high school, she studied acting with William H. Macy and his wife, Felicity Huffman, at the Atlantic Theater Company, which was developed by Macy and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and film director, David Mamet. Alba rose to greater prominence in Hollywood in 1999 after appearing as a member of a snobby high school clique tormenting an insecure copy editor in the romantic comedy Never Been Kissed, opposite Drew Barrymore, and as the female lead in the little-seen comedy horror film Idle Hands, alongside Devon Sawa.
2000–2006: Worldwide recognition
Her big break came when James Cameron picked Alba from a pool of over one thousand candidates for the role of the genetically engineered super-soldier, Max Guevara, on the FOX sci-fi television series Dark Angel. The series ran for two seasons until 2002 and earned Alba critical acclaim, a Golden Globe nomination, the Teen Choice Award for Choice Actress, and Saturn Award for Best Actress. Her role has been cited as a feminist character and is considered a symbol of female empowerment. Writing for the University of Melbourne, Bronwen Auty considered Max to be the "archetypal modern feminist hero —a young woman empowered to use her body actively to achieve goals", citing Max's refusal to use firearms and instead using martial arts and knowledge as weapons as contributing to this status. In 2004, Max was ranked at number 17 in TV Guides list of the "25 Greatest Sci-Fi Legends". Her role in Dark Angel led to significant parts in films, she had her big screen breakthrough in 2003, when she starred as an aspiring dancer-choreographer in Honey. Rotten Tomatoes' critical consensus was: "An attractive Jessica Alba and energetic dance numbers provide some lift to this corny and formulaic movie". Budgeted at US$18 million, the film, nevertheless, made US$62.2 million.
Alba next played exotic dancer Nancy Callahan, as part of a long ensemble cast, in the neo-noir crime anthology film Sin City (2005), written, produced, and directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller. It is based on Miller's graphic novel of the same name. She had not heard about the novel prior to her involvement with the film, but was eager to work with Rodriguez. The film was a critical darling and grossed US$158.8 million. She received a MTV Movie Award for Sexiest Performance.
Alba portrayed the Marvel Comics character Invisible Woman in Fantastic Four (also 2005), alongside Ioan Gruffudd, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon. The Guardian, in its review for the film, noted: "Feminists and non-feminists alike must absorb the Fantastic Four'''s most troubling paradox: having been admitted to the story on the grounds of her beauty, [Alba's] superpower is to be invisible". The film was a commercial success despite negative reviews, grossing US$333.5 million worldwide. At the 2006 MTV Movie Awards, she earned nominations for Best Hero and Best On-Screen Team. Her last 2005 film was the thriller Into the Blue, in which Alba portrayed, opposite Paul Walker, one half of a couple who find themselves in trouble with a drug lord after they come upon the illicit cargo of a sunken airplane. The film saw moderate box office returns, with a US$44.4 million worldwide gross. She hosted the 2006 MTV Movie Awards and performed sketches spoofing the movies King Kong, Mission: Impossible III, and The Da Vinci Code.
2007–2010: Romantic comedies
Alba reprised her role in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, released in June 2007. According to Alba, Tim Story's direction during an emotional scene almost made her quit acting. "[He told me] 'It looks too real. It looks too painful. Can you be prettier when you cry? Cry pretty, Jessica.' He was like, 'Don't do that thing with your face. Just make it flat. We can CGI the tears in.'" According to Alba, this experience filled her with self-doubt: "And then it all got me thinking: Am I not good enough? Are my instincts and my emotions not good enough? Do people hate them so much that they don't want me to be a person? Am I not allowed to be a person in my work? And so I just said, 'Fuck it. I don't care about this business anymore.'" The film grossed globally.
In Good Luck Chuck (also 2007), Alba portrayed the love interest of a womanizer dentist. She posed for one of the Good Luck Chucks theatrical posters parodying the well-known Rolling Stone cover photographed by Annie Leibovitz featuring John Lennon and Yoko Ono in similar poses. While the film was heavily panned by critics, it made almost US$60 million upon its release. Her third starring vehicle in 2007 was the psychological thriller Awake, portraying the girlfriend of a billionaire man who is about to have a heart transplant. Reviews were lukewarm, but Roger Ebert praised her performance, and budgeted at around US$8 million, the film made US$32.7 million.
In February 2008, she hosted the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Science and Technical Awards. Alba made her acting transition to the horror genre in the film The Eye, a remake of the Hong Kong original, in which she obtained the role of a successful classical violinist who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world. Though the film was not well received by critics, her performance itself received mixed reviews. She garnered a Teen Choice for Choice Movie Actress: Horror–Thriller and a Razzie Award nomination for Worst Actress (shared with The Love Guru). In 2008, she also played a salesgirl in the independent romantic comedy Meet Bill, alongside Logan Lerman and Elizabeth Banks, and starred in the comedy The Love Guru, as a woman who inherits the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team, opposite Mike Myers and Justin Timberlake. Mick LaSalle, of the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that she was "prominently" in the film, felt that she "finally seems relaxed on camera". The Love Guru was a critical and commercial flop.
While Alba did not have any film release in 2009, five high-profile films released throughout 2010 featured her in significant roles. Her first role in the year was that of a prostitute in The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the book of the same name, opposite Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival to polarized reactions from critics. Her next film was the romantic comedy Valentine's Day, in which she played the girlfriend of a florist as part of a long ensemble cast consisting of Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner and Julia Roberts, among others. Despite negative reviews, the film was a commercial success, with a worldwide gross of US$216.5 million. In the action film Machete, Alba reunited with director Robert Rodriguez, taking on the role of an immigration officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her family. Machete made over US$44 million globally.
The drama An Invisible Sign of My Own, which Alba filmed in late 2008, premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival. In it, she portrayed a painfully withdrawn young woman. Her last 2010 film was the comedy Little Fockers, in which she played an extrovert drug representative, reuniting with Robert De Niro, who was also in Machete. Despite negative reviews from critics, the film grossed over US$310 million worldwide. For all her 2010 roles, she received a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress.
2011–present: action and independent media productions
In 2011, Alba worked for the third time with Robert Rodriguez in the film Spy Kids: All the Time in the World, portraying a retired spy who is called back into action. To bond with her new stepchildren, she invites them along. The film paled at the box office in comparison to the previous films in the franchise, but was still a moderate success, taking in US$85 million around the globe. Alba next appeared with Adam Scott, Richard Jenkins, Jane Lynch, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Catherine O'Hara in the comedy A.C.O.D. (2013), portraying what the Washington Post described as a "fellow child of divorce", with whom Scott's character "almost cheats on" her girlfriend. ScreenRant critic Ben Kendrick wrote: "[Winstead] and [Alba] also deliver in their contributions – though both of their characters are mainly designed to be mirrors for Carter to examine his own life and choices." A.C.O.D. received a limited theatrical run in North America. In 2013, Alba also made her voice acting debut in the moderately successful animated film Escape from Planet Earth.
Alba worked once again with director Rodriguez for two film sequels. She reprised her role of an Immigration Officer, in an uncredited cameo appearance, in Machete Kills (2013), which flopped with critics and audiences, and her much larger role of stripper Nancy Callahan, seeking to avenge her late protector, in Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, which was released in August 2014, on 2D and 3D. Unlike the first film, A Dame to Kill For was a commercial failure, grossing US$39 million against its US$65 million production budget, and received mixed reviews from film critics. Variety felt it was a "late, limp attempt to turn Alba's character from an exploited figure into an empowered one". She next took on the roles of a cabaret show performer in the dramedy Dear Eleanor (2014), the athletic girlfriend of a successful and well-respected English professor in the romantic comedy Some Kind of Beautiful (2014), a receptionist at a limo company in the thriller Stretch (also 2014), an emotionally vulnerable weapons trafficker in the crime comedy Barely Lethal (2015), and that of a documentary filmmaker in the horror film The Veil (2016); all films were released for limited theatrical runs and VOD.
In the action film Mechanic: Resurrection (2016), alongside Jason Statham, Alba played the girlfriend of a retired hitman. She did Krav Maga to get into shape for the film, and was drawn to the strength her character exhibited, remarking: "I think for these types of movies you don't often get to see the female romantic lead kind of kick butt. I mean, it's usually she's being saved by the guy, and so it's nice that I got to come to the table with a toughness, and a real heart". The film made US$125.7 million worldwide.
She will star in and executive produce a new documentary series for Disney+ called "Parenting Without Borders" (working title) which will focus on families around the world and their beliefs and culture.
Other endeavors
The Honest Company
In January 2012, Alba and business partner Christopher Gavigan launched The Honest Company, selling a collection of household goods, diapers, and body care products. The company was successful, and was valued at US$1 billion . In early 2013, Alba released her book, The Honest Life, based on her experiences creating a natural, non-toxic life for her family. The book became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2015, it was estimated that Alba owned 15 to 20 percent of the company.
In October 2015, Alba launched a collection of skin care and beauty products called Honest Beauty.
Charity and activism
Alba posed for a bondage-themed print advertising campaign by Declare Yourself, a campaign encouraging voter registration among youth for the 2008 United States presidential election. The ads, photographed by Mark Liddell, feature Alba wrapped in and gagged with black tape, and drew national media attention. Alba said of doing the advertisements that "it didn't freak me out at all." Alba also said, "I think it is important for young people to be aware of the need we have in this country to get them more active politically...People respond to things that are shocking."
Alba endorsed and supported Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama during the 2008 primary season. She also endorsed Hillary Clinton's campaign for president.
In June 2009, while filming The Killer Inside Me in Oklahoma City, Alba was involved in a controversy with residents when she pasted posters of sharks around town. Alba said that she was trying to bring attention to the diminishing population of great white sharks. Media outlets speculated that Alba would be pursued and charged with vandalism. On June 16, 2009, Oklahoma City police said that they would not pursue criminal charges against Alba, because none of the property owners wanted to pursue it. Alba apologized in a statement to People magazine and said that she regretted her actions. She later donated an undisclosed amount of money (over US$500) to the United Way, whose billboard she had obscured with one of the shark posters.
In 2011, Alba participated in a two-day lobbying effort in Washington D.C. in support of the Safe Chemicals Act, a revision of the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976. Alba returned to Capitol Hill in 2015 to lobby lawmakers as they once again debated a replacement for the 1976 Substances Control Act. She has also been a strong supporter of gay rights and on June 27, 2013, she expressed her delight with the Supreme Court's decision to strike down DOMA on her Twitter account. She tweeted "#equality #love".
Alba's charity work has included participation with Clothes Off Our Back, Habitat for Humanity, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Project HOME, RADD, Revlon Run/Walk for Women, SOS Children's Villages, Soles4Souls, Step Up and Baby2Baby. Alba is an ambassador for the 1Goal movement to provide education to children in Africa. She has also served as a Baby2Baby "angel" ambassador, donating and helping to distribute items such as diapers and clothing to families in Los Angeles.
In 2015, Alba and The Honest Company sponsored a laboratory at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. The lab was announced to be a specialized room designed to keep out dust and particles, where a team of epidemiologists would research links between household chemicals and autism.
Public image
Jessica Alba has received attention for her looks over the years and has been included in several publications' lists of the most attractive celebrities of the time. Alba was included in Maxim Magazine's Hot 100 list multiple times from 2001 to 2014. On this she has said, "I have to go to certain lengths to use sexuality to my advantage, while guiding people to thinking the way I want them to."
In 2002, Alba was voted as the fifth Sexiest Female Star in a Hollywood.com poll. In 2005, she was named as one of People Magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People, and also appeared later in the magazine's 100 Most Beautiful list in 2007. Alba has also been named as part of FHM's Sexiest Women lists.
Alba was named among Playboy's "25 Sexiest Celebrities" in 2006 and appeared on the cover of the magazine that year. Alba was involved in litigation against Playboy for its use of her image on this cover (from a promotional shot for Into the Blue) without her consent, which she contends gave the appearance that she was featured in the issue in a "nude pictorial". However, she later dropped the lawsuit after receiving a personal apology from Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, who agreed to make donations to two charities that Alba has supported. Also in 2006, readers of AskMen.com voted Alba No. 1 on "99 Most Desirable Women". In 2007, Alba was ranked No.4 on Empire Magazine's "100 Sexiest Movie Stars". Both GQ and In Style had Alba on their June 2008 covers. Alba appeared in the 2009 Campari calendar which featured photos of her posing. Campari printed 9,999 copies of the calendar. In 2011, she was named one of the "100 Hottest Women of All-Time" by Men's Health, and in 2012 People named her one of year's "Most Beautiful at Every Age".
In 2010, reports surfaced that a 21-year-old Chinese girl was seeking plastic surgery to resemble Alba in order to win back an ex-boyfriend; the star spoke out against the perceived need to change one's appearance for love.
Alba has commented on her fears of being typecast as a sex kitten based on the bulk of parts offered to her. In an interview, Alba said she wanted to be taken seriously as an actress but believed she needed to do movies that she would otherwise not be interested in to build her career, stating that eventually she hoped to be more selective in her film projects.
Alba has been quoted saying she will not do nudity for a role. She was given the option to appear nude in Sin City by the film's directors, Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez, but declined the offer, saying, "I don't do nudity. I just don't. Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety". She remarked of a GQ shoot in which she was scantily clad, "They didn't want me to wear the granny panties, but I said, 'If I'm gonna be topless I need to wear granny panties."
Personal life
Alba was raised as a Catholic throughout her teenage years, but left the church because she felt she was being judged for her appearance, explaining:
Older men would hit on me, and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, when I wasn't. It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex that it was my fault and it made me ashamed of my body and being a woman.
Alba also had objections to the church's condemnations of premarital sex and homosexuality and what she saw as a lack of strong female role models in the Bible, explaining "I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life." Her "religious devotion [began] to wane" at the age of 15 when she guest starred as a teenager with gonorrhea in the throat in a 1996 episode of the television series Chicago Hope. Her friends at church reacted negatively to her role, making her lose faith in the church. However, she has stated that she still holds her belief in God despite leaving the church.
While filming Dark Angel in January 2000, Alba began a three-year relationship with her co-star Michael Weatherly. Weatherly proposed to Alba on her 20th birthday, which she accepted. In August 2003, Alba and Weatherly announced that they had ended their relationship. In July 2007, Alba spoke out about the breakup, saying "I don't know [why I got engaged]. I was a virgin. He was 12 years older than me. I thought he knew better. My parents weren't happy. They're really religious. They believe God wouldn't allow the Bible to be written if it wasn't what they are supposed to believe. I'm completely different."
Alba met Cash Warren, son of actor Michael Warren, while filming Fantastic Four in 2004. The pair were married in Los Angeles in May 2008. They have three children: daughters Honor Marie, born in June 2008, and Haven Garner born in August 2011, and a son, Hayes, born in December 2017. The first pictures of her eldest daughter, which appear in the July 2008 issue of OK! magazine, reportedly earned Alba US$1.5 million.
In 2014, Alba appeared in Henry Louis Gates's genealogy series Finding Your Roots'', where her lineage was traced back to the ancient Maya civilization. The show's research indicated that her surname was not inherited from a Spanish man, since her father's direct paternal line (Y-DNA) was Haplogroup Q-M3, being Indigenous in origin. Her father's matrilineal line (mtDNA) was Jewish and revealed that lawyer Alan Dershowitz is a genetic relative of hers. Alba's global admixture was 72.7% European, 22.5% East Asian and Native American, 2% Sub-Saharan African, 0.3% Middle Eastern and North African, 0.1% South Asian and 2.4% "No Match".
Filmography
Film
Television
Music videos
Video games
Awards
References
External links
1981 births
Living people
20th-century American actresses
21st-century American actresses
Activists from California
Activists from Mississippi
Activists from Texas
Actresses from Los Angeles
Actresses from Mississippi
Actresses from Texas
American actresses of Mexican descent
American child actresses
American company founders
American feminists
American film actresses
American people of Mexican-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American retail chief executives
American television actresses
American video game actresses
American voice actresses
American women activists
American women chief executives
American women company founders
Businesspeople from Los Angeles
Businesspeople from Mississippi
Businesspeople from Texas
Businesspeople in online retailing
Former Roman Catholics
Golden Raspberry Award winners
Hispanic and Latino American actresses
Hispanic and Latino American businesspeople
Hispanic and Latino American company founders
Hispanic and Latino American feminists
People from Biloxi, Mississippi
People from Claremont, California
People from Del Rio, Texas
People from Pomona, California
People of Maya descent | false | [
"The Parable of the Two Sons is a parable told by Jesus in the New Testament, found in Matthew (). It contrasts the tax collectors and prostitutes who accepted the message taught by John the Baptist with the \"religious\" people who did not.\n\nSummary \nThe parable is about 2 sons. Their father asked both of them to work in the vineyard. One of the sons said that he wouldn't do it, but he later changed his mind and did the work anyway. The other son said he would do it, but he didn't.\n\nInterpretation\nIn this parable, Jesus reproved those who considered themselves virtuous; whereas those they considered sinners, such as the tax collectors and prostitutes, were accepting the message of John the Baptist and repenting. The parable of the Pharisee and the Publican has a similar theme.\n\nReferences\n\nGospel of Matthew\nJohn the Baptist\nTwo Sons, Parable of the",
"The 2016 Utah Democratic presidential caucuses took place on March 22 in the U.S. state of Utah as one of the Democratic Party's primaries ahead of the 2016 presidential election.\n\nOn the same day, the Democratic Party held another caucus in Idaho and a primary in Arizona, while the Republican Party held primaries in two states, including their own Utah caucuses, plus in American Samoa.\n\nOpinion polling\n\nResults\n\nAnalysis\nSanders defeated Clinton by a landslide margin in Utah's caucus, winning almost 80 percent of the vote to Clinton's 20 percent. Sanders had held several rallies in Utah and spent $300,000 on TV advertising ahead of the state's caucuses, as well as those in Idaho and Arizona that were held on the same day. Though Clinton had been endorsed by some of the most prominent Democrats in Utah, such as then-Mayor of Salt Lake County Ben McAdams, she did not compete in the state as much as Sanders did. Turnout in the Utah caucus was unusually high, with some caucus sites needing to print extra ballots after running out multiple times. Sanders' victory in Utah was seen as part of a trend in which he tended to do better in whiter states and in those that held caucuses rather than primaries.\n\nReferences\n\nUtah\nDemocratic caucuses\n2016\nMarch 2016 events in the United States"
] |
[
"Darius Rucker",
"2008-09: Learn to Live"
] | C_c654ef8eb7b54ec688bd6b5fc9d28684_0 | When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed? | 1 | When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed? | Darius Rucker | In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at NO. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61. Rucker's entry into the country world was met with some intrigue, largely because of his history as a rock musician and because he is African-American. Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with "Seven Spanish Angels".) It was followed by two more number one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three hit "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, "Come Back Song" and "This". His third country album True Believers (2013) reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles "True Believers" (#24), "Wagon Wheel" (#1), and "Radio" (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles "Homegrown Honey" (#6) and "Southern Style" (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Traveling Echoes. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern African-American upbringing. His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories. His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing was always his dream.
Hootie & the Blowfish
Darius Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" by fans, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.
Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.
In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us." After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they would be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while also releasing a new album that same year.
Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.
Solo career
In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott, and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On." The single "This Is My World" was featured in the 2001 comedy film Shallow Hal. In regards to the album, "That was just a minute in my life," he later told The Arizona Republic about the record. "I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill at that time, and I wanted to make a neo soul record." He also said in the article that he doesn't anticipate recording an R&B-styled disc again. "Country music is my day job now. I'll probably do this till it's all over, but that album was a lot of fun."
Rucker appeared on a pop-star edition of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in July 2001. He also portrayed a singing cowboy in a television commercial for the fast-food company Burger King, promoting its TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich in 2005. In the commercial, he sang a jingle set to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." In 2006 Rucker lent his voice to the track "God's Reasons" written by Dean Dinning and Joel A. Miller for the film The Still Life.
Country music
2008–2009: Learn to Live
In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983.
Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at No. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61.
Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972.
2010–2011: Charleston, SC 1966
Rucker released his second country album, Charleston, SC 1966, on October 12, 2010. The title is inspired by Radney Foster's solo debut album, Del Rio, TX 1959. Its first single was "Come Back Song," which Rucker wrote with Chris Stapleton and Casey Beathard. It was his fourth country number one as well as a NO. 37 hit on the Hot 100. The album's second single was "This", which was released to radio in November 2010 and also reached No. 1 in the country chart. Rucker wrote it with Rogers and Kara DioGuardi. "I Got Nothin'" was the album's third single, peaking at No. 18. Also included on the album is a duet with Brad Paisley titled "I Don't Care". Charleston, SC 1966 received a gold certification.
2012–2014: True Believers
On May 20, 2011, Rucker delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On December 14, 2011, CBSnews.com reported that Rucker was working on a third country album with recording set to begin January 2012 followed by the release of the album early in the year. The album's lead-off single, "True Believers," made its chart debut in September. On October 12, 2012, Rucker told Broadway's Electric Barnyard that his album would also be titled True Believers. "True Believers" peaked at No. 18. Its second single is a cover of Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor's "Wagon Wheel" (previously made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show), featuring backing vocals from Lady Antebellum. "Wagon Wheel" reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in May 2013. True Believers was released on May 21, 2013. The album's third single, "Radio", was released to country radio on July 22, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Miss You", was released to country radio on February 3, 2014.
On October 2, 2012, Rucker was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Halfway through his set at the Opry that night he answered questions from the audience which included a question from Brad Paisley. Paisley said: "I have two questions. One, are you still the worst poker player in the world? And two, would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Rucker accepted, and it became official on October 16.
Rucker was a featured performer at the C2C: Country to Country festival in London on March 17, 2013, which was headlined by Carrie Underwood.
On News Year's Day 2013. he sang the national anthem at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
On May 11, 2013, Rucker was the speaker at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Before his speech, he received an honorary doctorate of music.
Rucker also sang the national anthem at the NBA finals on June 16, 2013.
On December 6, 2013, it was announced that Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" had earned him a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. At the awards ceremony on January 26, 2014, Rucker won, becoming only the third African American recording act (the first being Charley Pride, the second being The Pointer Sisters) to win a vocal performance Grammy Award in a country music category.
2014–2015: Southern Style and Home for the Holidays
On August 25, 2014, Rucker released a new single titled "Homegrown Honey" to country radio and to digital retailers. It served as the lead single to his fourth country studio album, Southern Style, released on March 31, 2015. It reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart in April 2015. The album's second single, the title track, released to country radio on May 4, 2015.
On September 15, 2014, it was announced that Rucker had completed his first Christmas album and that it would be released on October 27, 2014. Included is a collaboration with Sheryl Crow on "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
May 30, 2015 Rucker headlined Philadelphia's famous XTU 31st Anniversary Show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Christopher Bousquet named President of the Hootie fan club
Rucker makes an appearance on Sister Hazel's 2016 album, Lighter in the Dark.
2016–present: When Was the Last Time
On January 6, 2016, Rucker announced that he was working on his fifth country album. The album's lead single, "If I Told You" was released to country radio on July 5, 2016. It reached number one in the Country Airplay chart nearly a year later, and peaked at number four on the Hot Country Chart. Rucker also returned to the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK in March 2017, where he was second on the bill to Reba McEntire.
On May 29, 2016, Rucker performed the national anthem prior to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Rucker also performed the national anthem for a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on September 15. Rucker agreed to perform the song at the behest of personal friend and former Bills player Bruce Smith, whose jersey was being retired that night. He sang the national anthem again ahead of the Saints-Dolphins game held at London's Wembley Stadium in October 2017, as part of the NFL International Series.
Rucker was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. On July 24, 2017, Rucker released the second single from his upcoming album, titled "For the First Time." On July 26, 2017, he shared details of his fifth country album, titled When Was the Last Time and it was released on October 20, 2017.
Rucker appeared as a mentor on seventeenth season of The Voice for Team Blake. Rucker released Beers and Sunshine in August 2020 under Capitol Records, and released a "summer mix" version of the song in 2021. In 2021, Rucker contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
Personal life
Rucker is an ardent South Carolina Gamecocks fan as well as a Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Reds fan. He also likes the film Stir Crazy, which he has seen more than 100 times. To show his loyalty to his University, he gave a free concert which was held at the Colonial Life Arena after the football team was able to win 6 games following a pair of losing seasons after joining the Southeastern Conference.
Rucker's mother died in November 1992 of a heart attack. His grief inspired two Hootie & the Blowfish songs: "I'm Goin' Home" and "Not Even the Trees." On April 21, 1995, his girlfriend (Elizabeth Ann Phillips) gave birth to Rucker's first child, Carolyn Pearl Phillips. Rucker married Beth Leonard in 2000. His second daughter, Daniella Rose, was born to his wife, Beth, on May 16, 2001. They had a son, Jack, in 2005. The Hootie song "Where Were You" is about Rucker's strained relationship with his father, and was released only in Europe, where Rucker thought that his father would be unlikely to hear it. His country single "Alright" was inspired by his marriage. Rucker and his wife announced their conscious uncoupling in 2020.
Rucker is a friend of the golfer Tiger Woods, whom he met in a bar in 1993 when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding with Hootie & the Blowfish and at his father's funeral. His interest in golf goes well beyond his relationship with Woods; he was a VIP guest of Team USA at the 2016 Ryder Cup, and he attended Arnold Palmer's funeral shortly before the Cup.
On November 7, 2016, Rucker told ESPN that he had become a partner in MGC Sports, a sports agency that currently represents golfers (among them Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry), football players, and coaches. He added that he was planning to reduce his performance commitments from 100 dates per year to about 30, and that he thought that his experience in the entertainment business would be an asset to potential clients. Rucker will be able to work without restrictions for golfers, but because he is not registered with the NFL players' union, he initially will only be able to meet with NFL players under very limited circumstances.
For the Undercover Boss series episode "Celebrity Undercover Boss: Darius Rucker" which premiered May 12, 2017, Rucker disguised himself as a 62-year-old music teacher, ran an open mic night and worked as a roadie.
Philanthropy and impact
Rucker has regularly worked with charities that support sick and underprivileged children, via benefit concerts, volunteering, the World Golf Foundation's The First Tee Program, and the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation which has raised nearly $4.5 million to provide funding to public education systems throughout South Carolina.
He serves as a board member of the MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, where his mother worked for over thirty years from the time Rucker was a child, and has helped raise millions of dollars to help build a new hospital.
He also made a commitment to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital after touring the facility in 2008. Since then, Rucker has spearheaded an annual event resulting in over $1.6 million raised for St. Jude's to date.
Tours
Headlining
Southern Style Tour (2015)
Good for a Good Time (2016)
Co-headlining
Summer Plays on Tour (2018) with Lady Antebellum
Supporting
H2O II: Wetter and Wilder Tour with Brad Paisley (2012)
Own the Night Tour with Lady Antebellum (2012)
Discography
Studio albums
Back to Then (2002)
Learn to Live (2008)
Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
True Believers (2013)
Southern Style (2015)
When Was the Last Time (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Darius Rucker talks about True Believers on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country
1966 births
Living people
African-American rock musicians
African-American male singer-songwriters
American country singer-songwriters
African-American country musicians
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
American sports agents
American baritones
Atlantic Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Country musicians from South Carolina
Grammy Award winners
Hootie & the Blowfish members
Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
University of South Carolina alumni
Grand Ole Opry members
American contemporary R&B singers
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
American alternative rock musicians | false | [
"\"I Go Blind\" is a song by Canadian alternative rock group 54-40. The song was released in Canada as the second single from the band's 1986 self-titled album, 54-40. It has since become one of the band's most popular songs.\n\nHootie & the Blowfish cover\nThe song was recorded by American band Hootie & the Blowfish and originally released as a b-side on the band's \"Hold My Hand\" single. The cover was later released on the soundtrack of the TV series Friends. The cover became a radio hit in 1996, peaking at No. 2 on the Adult Top 40 chart and at No. 22 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary chart. The Hootie version also charted on Canada's RPM Singles Chart, peaking at No. 13.\n\nThe song was featured on the band's compilation albums; 2000's Scattered, Smothered and Covered and 2003's The Best of Hootie & the Blowfish: 1993–2003.\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1986 singles\n54-40 songs\nHootie & the Blowfish songs\n1986 songs\n1996 singles\nAtlantic Records singles\nSongs written by Darryl Neudorf\nFriends (1994 TV series)",
"Hootie & the Blowfish is the fourth studio album by American rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, released on March 4, 2003. It is their last album under Atlantic Records and their first album to not have a single to reach the top charts. The lead singles were \"Innocence\" and \"Space\", and the album itself reached no. 46 in the U.S.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Deeper Side\" – 3:38\n\"Little Brother\" – 3:09\n\"Innocence\" – 3:24\n\"Space\" – 2:15\n\"I'll Come Runnin'\" – 3:48\n\"Tears Fall Down\" – 3:05\n\"The Rain Song\" – 3:52\n\"Show Me Your Heart\" – 4:03\n\"When She's Gone\" – 4:06\n\"Little Darlin'\" – 3:18\n\"Woody\" – 3:15\n\"Go and Tell Him (Soup Song)\", includes the hidden track: \"Alright\" – 9:41\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\n2003 albums\nAlbums produced by Don Was\nAtlantic Records albums\nHootie & the Blowfish albums"
] |
[
"Darius Rucker",
"2008-09: Learn to Live",
"When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c654ef8eb7b54ec688bd6b5fc9d28684_0 | Did he sing while in college in S. Carolina? | 2 | Did Darius Rucker sing while in college in S. Carolina? | Darius Rucker | In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at NO. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61. Rucker's entry into the country world was met with some intrigue, largely because of his history as a rock musician and because he is African-American. Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with "Seven Spanish Angels".) It was followed by two more number one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three hit "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, "Come Back Song" and "This". His third country album True Believers (2013) reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles "True Believers" (#24), "Wagon Wheel" (#1), and "Radio" (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles "Homegrown Honey" (#6) and "Southern Style" (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Traveling Echoes. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern African-American upbringing. His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories. His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing was always his dream.
Hootie & the Blowfish
Darius Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" by fans, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.
Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.
In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us." After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they would be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while also releasing a new album that same year.
Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.
Solo career
In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott, and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On." The single "This Is My World" was featured in the 2001 comedy film Shallow Hal. In regards to the album, "That was just a minute in my life," he later told The Arizona Republic about the record. "I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill at that time, and I wanted to make a neo soul record." He also said in the article that he doesn't anticipate recording an R&B-styled disc again. "Country music is my day job now. I'll probably do this till it's all over, but that album was a lot of fun."
Rucker appeared on a pop-star edition of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in July 2001. He also portrayed a singing cowboy in a television commercial for the fast-food company Burger King, promoting its TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich in 2005. In the commercial, he sang a jingle set to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." In 2006 Rucker lent his voice to the track "God's Reasons" written by Dean Dinning and Joel A. Miller for the film The Still Life.
Country music
2008–2009: Learn to Live
In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983.
Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at No. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61.
Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972.
2010–2011: Charleston, SC 1966
Rucker released his second country album, Charleston, SC 1966, on October 12, 2010. The title is inspired by Radney Foster's solo debut album, Del Rio, TX 1959. Its first single was "Come Back Song," which Rucker wrote with Chris Stapleton and Casey Beathard. It was his fourth country number one as well as a NO. 37 hit on the Hot 100. The album's second single was "This", which was released to radio in November 2010 and also reached No. 1 in the country chart. Rucker wrote it with Rogers and Kara DioGuardi. "I Got Nothin'" was the album's third single, peaking at No. 18. Also included on the album is a duet with Brad Paisley titled "I Don't Care". Charleston, SC 1966 received a gold certification.
2012–2014: True Believers
On May 20, 2011, Rucker delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On December 14, 2011, CBSnews.com reported that Rucker was working on a third country album with recording set to begin January 2012 followed by the release of the album early in the year. The album's lead-off single, "True Believers," made its chart debut in September. On October 12, 2012, Rucker told Broadway's Electric Barnyard that his album would also be titled True Believers. "True Believers" peaked at No. 18. Its second single is a cover of Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor's "Wagon Wheel" (previously made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show), featuring backing vocals from Lady Antebellum. "Wagon Wheel" reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in May 2013. True Believers was released on May 21, 2013. The album's third single, "Radio", was released to country radio on July 22, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Miss You", was released to country radio on February 3, 2014.
On October 2, 2012, Rucker was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Halfway through his set at the Opry that night he answered questions from the audience which included a question from Brad Paisley. Paisley said: "I have two questions. One, are you still the worst poker player in the world? And two, would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Rucker accepted, and it became official on October 16.
Rucker was a featured performer at the C2C: Country to Country festival in London on March 17, 2013, which was headlined by Carrie Underwood.
On News Year's Day 2013. he sang the national anthem at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
On May 11, 2013, Rucker was the speaker at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Before his speech, he received an honorary doctorate of music.
Rucker also sang the national anthem at the NBA finals on June 16, 2013.
On December 6, 2013, it was announced that Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" had earned him a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. At the awards ceremony on January 26, 2014, Rucker won, becoming only the third African American recording act (the first being Charley Pride, the second being The Pointer Sisters) to win a vocal performance Grammy Award in a country music category.
2014–2015: Southern Style and Home for the Holidays
On August 25, 2014, Rucker released a new single titled "Homegrown Honey" to country radio and to digital retailers. It served as the lead single to his fourth country studio album, Southern Style, released on March 31, 2015. It reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart in April 2015. The album's second single, the title track, released to country radio on May 4, 2015.
On September 15, 2014, it was announced that Rucker had completed his first Christmas album and that it would be released on October 27, 2014. Included is a collaboration with Sheryl Crow on "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
May 30, 2015 Rucker headlined Philadelphia's famous XTU 31st Anniversary Show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Christopher Bousquet named President of the Hootie fan club
Rucker makes an appearance on Sister Hazel's 2016 album, Lighter in the Dark.
2016–present: When Was the Last Time
On January 6, 2016, Rucker announced that he was working on his fifth country album. The album's lead single, "If I Told You" was released to country radio on July 5, 2016. It reached number one in the Country Airplay chart nearly a year later, and peaked at number four on the Hot Country Chart. Rucker also returned to the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK in March 2017, where he was second on the bill to Reba McEntire.
On May 29, 2016, Rucker performed the national anthem prior to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Rucker also performed the national anthem for a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on September 15. Rucker agreed to perform the song at the behest of personal friend and former Bills player Bruce Smith, whose jersey was being retired that night. He sang the national anthem again ahead of the Saints-Dolphins game held at London's Wembley Stadium in October 2017, as part of the NFL International Series.
Rucker was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. On July 24, 2017, Rucker released the second single from his upcoming album, titled "For the First Time." On July 26, 2017, he shared details of his fifth country album, titled When Was the Last Time and it was released on October 20, 2017.
Rucker appeared as a mentor on seventeenth season of The Voice for Team Blake. Rucker released Beers and Sunshine in August 2020 under Capitol Records, and released a "summer mix" version of the song in 2021. In 2021, Rucker contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
Personal life
Rucker is an ardent South Carolina Gamecocks fan as well as a Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Reds fan. He also likes the film Stir Crazy, which he has seen more than 100 times. To show his loyalty to his University, he gave a free concert which was held at the Colonial Life Arena after the football team was able to win 6 games following a pair of losing seasons after joining the Southeastern Conference.
Rucker's mother died in November 1992 of a heart attack. His grief inspired two Hootie & the Blowfish songs: "I'm Goin' Home" and "Not Even the Trees." On April 21, 1995, his girlfriend (Elizabeth Ann Phillips) gave birth to Rucker's first child, Carolyn Pearl Phillips. Rucker married Beth Leonard in 2000. His second daughter, Daniella Rose, was born to his wife, Beth, on May 16, 2001. They had a son, Jack, in 2005. The Hootie song "Where Were You" is about Rucker's strained relationship with his father, and was released only in Europe, where Rucker thought that his father would be unlikely to hear it. His country single "Alright" was inspired by his marriage. Rucker and his wife announced their conscious uncoupling in 2020.
Rucker is a friend of the golfer Tiger Woods, whom he met in a bar in 1993 when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding with Hootie & the Blowfish and at his father's funeral. His interest in golf goes well beyond his relationship with Woods; he was a VIP guest of Team USA at the 2016 Ryder Cup, and he attended Arnold Palmer's funeral shortly before the Cup.
On November 7, 2016, Rucker told ESPN that he had become a partner in MGC Sports, a sports agency that currently represents golfers (among them Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry), football players, and coaches. He added that he was planning to reduce his performance commitments from 100 dates per year to about 30, and that he thought that his experience in the entertainment business would be an asset to potential clients. Rucker will be able to work without restrictions for golfers, but because he is not registered with the NFL players' union, he initially will only be able to meet with NFL players under very limited circumstances.
For the Undercover Boss series episode "Celebrity Undercover Boss: Darius Rucker" which premiered May 12, 2017, Rucker disguised himself as a 62-year-old music teacher, ran an open mic night and worked as a roadie.
Philanthropy and impact
Rucker has regularly worked with charities that support sick and underprivileged children, via benefit concerts, volunteering, the World Golf Foundation's The First Tee Program, and the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation which has raised nearly $4.5 million to provide funding to public education systems throughout South Carolina.
He serves as a board member of the MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, where his mother worked for over thirty years from the time Rucker was a child, and has helped raise millions of dollars to help build a new hospital.
He also made a commitment to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital after touring the facility in 2008. Since then, Rucker has spearheaded an annual event resulting in over $1.6 million raised for St. Jude's to date.
Tours
Headlining
Southern Style Tour (2015)
Good for a Good Time (2016)
Co-headlining
Summer Plays on Tour (2018) with Lady Antebellum
Supporting
H2O II: Wetter and Wilder Tour with Brad Paisley (2012)
Own the Night Tour with Lady Antebellum (2012)
Discography
Studio albums
Back to Then (2002)
Learn to Live (2008)
Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
True Believers (2013)
Southern Style (2015)
When Was the Last Time (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Darius Rucker talks about True Believers on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country
1966 births
Living people
African-American rock musicians
African-American male singer-songwriters
American country singer-songwriters
African-American country musicians
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
American sports agents
American baritones
Atlantic Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Country musicians from South Carolina
Grammy Award winners
Hootie & the Blowfish members
Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
University of South Carolina alumni
Grand Ole Opry members
American contemporary R&B singers
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
American alternative rock musicians | false | [
"Caleb Duvernay (born July 24, 1996) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a defender.\n\nCareer\n\nCollege & Youth\nDuvernay played four years of college soccer at the North Carolina State University between 2014 and 2017.\n\nWhile at college, Duvernay played with Carolina RailHawks U23s in the National Premier Soccer League in 2015 and 2016, and North Carolina FC U23 in the USL PDL in 2017.\n\nProfessional\nOn January 21, 2018, Duvernay was selected 61st overall in the 2018 MLS SuperDraft by Portland Timbers. However, he did not sign with the club. He instead spent 2018 playing in the USL PDL with North Carolina U23.\n\nOn March 15, 2019, Duvernay signed his first professional contract with USL Championship side North Carolina FC. He appeared in 16 games with the club over parts of two seasons before leaving the team on August 24, 2020.\n\nReferences\n\n1996 births\nLiving people\nAmerican soccer players\nAssociation football defenders\nNC State Wolfpack men's soccer players\nNorth Carolina FC U23 players\nNorth Carolina FC players\nSoccer players from North Carolina\nNational Premier Soccer League players\nUSL League Two players\nUSL Championship players\nPortland Timbers draft picks",
"Tharanga Goonetilleke is a soprano opera singer who was born in Badulla, Sri Lanka, but grew up in Ratmalana. Her singing ability was noticed by a music professor from Converse College while he was visiting Sri Lanka. She is the first woman from Sri Lanka to attend the Juilliard School, one of the world's leading music schools. She lives in New York City, and her career in opera has received international attention.\n\nEducation\nGoonetilleke began learning to sing in Sri Lanka at the age of 12 under the training of Christine Perera. She began attending Converse College in South Carolina in 2001 and graduated in 2005 with Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and a minor in biology.\n\nRepresenting South Carolina, she entered the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and won. Impressed by Goonetilleke's performance, the judges, who happened to be from the Juilliard School, asked her whether she had considered attending graduate school. Consequently, she decided to apply for admission to Juilliard, and in 2005, she was the first Sri Lankan woman to be admitted to the Juilliard School and was provided a full tuition scholarship. Her living expenses were covered by President's Fund of Sri Lanka. She graduated from Juilliard with a Master of Music in Voice and Opera.\n\nCareer\nIn 1998, Goonetilleke made her singing debut with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka (SOSL), after winning the SOSL concerto vocal competition in 1998. In 2010, she became a member of New York City Opera, and has since performed in numerous operas such as Il trittico, Dialogues of the Carmelites, La bohème, Die Zauberflöte, Iphigénie en Aulide, and Ariodante. She has also performed in concerts in the United States, Europe, India, and South Korea. Her 2011 concert tour in India was considered \"timely\" by the Sri Lankan High Commission in India since it helped foster a cultural dialogue between the two countries.\n\nPersonal life\nGoonetilleke grew up in Ratmalana, Sri Lanka, near the capital Colombo. She first became interested in opera when she was thirteen when she heard soprano Kiri Te Kanawa sing. However, she did not think at that time that opera was a career option. A music professor from Converse College, Douglas Weeks, was visiting Sri Lanka and heard her sing; he subsequently arranged for her admission to the college. She had planned to study medical science in Sri Lanka, but to her surprise, when her father found out about the offer for her to attend Converse College, he thought it was a good idea.\n\nHer younger sister Eranga also attended Converse College and afterward obtained her master's degree in Opera and Musical Theater from Southern Illinois University; she is currently a faculty member at Converse College's Lawson Academy of the Arts. Goonetilleke is married, has a daughter, and lives in New York City.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nLiving people\nOperatic sopranos\n20th-century Sri Lankan women singers\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nSri Lankan emigrants to the United States\nConverse College alumni\nSinhalese singers\n21st-century American women opera singers"
] |
[
"Darius Rucker",
"2008-09: Learn to Live",
"When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he sing while in college in S. Carolina?",
"I don't know."
] | C_c654ef8eb7b54ec688bd6b5fc9d28684_0 | How many studio albums did he record? | 3 | How many studio albums did Darius Rucker record? | Darius Rucker | In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at NO. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61. Rucker's entry into the country world was met with some intrigue, largely because of his history as a rock musician and because he is African-American. Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972. CANNOTANSWER | Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. | Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with "Seven Spanish Angels".) It was followed by two more number one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three hit "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, "Come Back Song" and "This". His third country album True Believers (2013) reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles "True Believers" (#24), "Wagon Wheel" (#1), and "Radio" (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles "Homegrown Honey" (#6) and "Southern Style" (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Traveling Echoes. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern African-American upbringing. His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories. His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing was always his dream.
Hootie & the Blowfish
Darius Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" by fans, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.
Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.
In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us." After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they would be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while also releasing a new album that same year.
Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.
Solo career
In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott, and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On." The single "This Is My World" was featured in the 2001 comedy film Shallow Hal. In regards to the album, "That was just a minute in my life," he later told The Arizona Republic about the record. "I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill at that time, and I wanted to make a neo soul record." He also said in the article that he doesn't anticipate recording an R&B-styled disc again. "Country music is my day job now. I'll probably do this till it's all over, but that album was a lot of fun."
Rucker appeared on a pop-star edition of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in July 2001. He also portrayed a singing cowboy in a television commercial for the fast-food company Burger King, promoting its TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich in 2005. In the commercial, he sang a jingle set to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." In 2006 Rucker lent his voice to the track "God's Reasons" written by Dean Dinning and Joel A. Miller for the film The Still Life.
Country music
2008–2009: Learn to Live
In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983.
Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at No. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61.
Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972.
2010–2011: Charleston, SC 1966
Rucker released his second country album, Charleston, SC 1966, on October 12, 2010. The title is inspired by Radney Foster's solo debut album, Del Rio, TX 1959. Its first single was "Come Back Song," which Rucker wrote with Chris Stapleton and Casey Beathard. It was his fourth country number one as well as a NO. 37 hit on the Hot 100. The album's second single was "This", which was released to radio in November 2010 and also reached No. 1 in the country chart. Rucker wrote it with Rogers and Kara DioGuardi. "I Got Nothin'" was the album's third single, peaking at No. 18. Also included on the album is a duet with Brad Paisley titled "I Don't Care". Charleston, SC 1966 received a gold certification.
2012–2014: True Believers
On May 20, 2011, Rucker delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On December 14, 2011, CBSnews.com reported that Rucker was working on a third country album with recording set to begin January 2012 followed by the release of the album early in the year. The album's lead-off single, "True Believers," made its chart debut in September. On October 12, 2012, Rucker told Broadway's Electric Barnyard that his album would also be titled True Believers. "True Believers" peaked at No. 18. Its second single is a cover of Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor's "Wagon Wheel" (previously made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show), featuring backing vocals from Lady Antebellum. "Wagon Wheel" reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in May 2013. True Believers was released on May 21, 2013. The album's third single, "Radio", was released to country radio on July 22, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Miss You", was released to country radio on February 3, 2014.
On October 2, 2012, Rucker was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Halfway through his set at the Opry that night he answered questions from the audience which included a question from Brad Paisley. Paisley said: "I have two questions. One, are you still the worst poker player in the world? And two, would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Rucker accepted, and it became official on October 16.
Rucker was a featured performer at the C2C: Country to Country festival in London on March 17, 2013, which was headlined by Carrie Underwood.
On News Year's Day 2013. he sang the national anthem at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
On May 11, 2013, Rucker was the speaker at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Before his speech, he received an honorary doctorate of music.
Rucker also sang the national anthem at the NBA finals on June 16, 2013.
On December 6, 2013, it was announced that Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" had earned him a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. At the awards ceremony on January 26, 2014, Rucker won, becoming only the third African American recording act (the first being Charley Pride, the second being The Pointer Sisters) to win a vocal performance Grammy Award in a country music category.
2014–2015: Southern Style and Home for the Holidays
On August 25, 2014, Rucker released a new single titled "Homegrown Honey" to country radio and to digital retailers. It served as the lead single to his fourth country studio album, Southern Style, released on March 31, 2015. It reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart in April 2015. The album's second single, the title track, released to country radio on May 4, 2015.
On September 15, 2014, it was announced that Rucker had completed his first Christmas album and that it would be released on October 27, 2014. Included is a collaboration with Sheryl Crow on "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
May 30, 2015 Rucker headlined Philadelphia's famous XTU 31st Anniversary Show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Christopher Bousquet named President of the Hootie fan club
Rucker makes an appearance on Sister Hazel's 2016 album, Lighter in the Dark.
2016–present: When Was the Last Time
On January 6, 2016, Rucker announced that he was working on his fifth country album. The album's lead single, "If I Told You" was released to country radio on July 5, 2016. It reached number one in the Country Airplay chart nearly a year later, and peaked at number four on the Hot Country Chart. Rucker also returned to the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK in March 2017, where he was second on the bill to Reba McEntire.
On May 29, 2016, Rucker performed the national anthem prior to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Rucker also performed the national anthem for a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on September 15. Rucker agreed to perform the song at the behest of personal friend and former Bills player Bruce Smith, whose jersey was being retired that night. He sang the national anthem again ahead of the Saints-Dolphins game held at London's Wembley Stadium in October 2017, as part of the NFL International Series.
Rucker was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. On July 24, 2017, Rucker released the second single from his upcoming album, titled "For the First Time." On July 26, 2017, he shared details of his fifth country album, titled When Was the Last Time and it was released on October 20, 2017.
Rucker appeared as a mentor on seventeenth season of The Voice for Team Blake. Rucker released Beers and Sunshine in August 2020 under Capitol Records, and released a "summer mix" version of the song in 2021. In 2021, Rucker contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
Personal life
Rucker is an ardent South Carolina Gamecocks fan as well as a Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Reds fan. He also likes the film Stir Crazy, which he has seen more than 100 times. To show his loyalty to his University, he gave a free concert which was held at the Colonial Life Arena after the football team was able to win 6 games following a pair of losing seasons after joining the Southeastern Conference.
Rucker's mother died in November 1992 of a heart attack. His grief inspired two Hootie & the Blowfish songs: "I'm Goin' Home" and "Not Even the Trees." On April 21, 1995, his girlfriend (Elizabeth Ann Phillips) gave birth to Rucker's first child, Carolyn Pearl Phillips. Rucker married Beth Leonard in 2000. His second daughter, Daniella Rose, was born to his wife, Beth, on May 16, 2001. They had a son, Jack, in 2005. The Hootie song "Where Were You" is about Rucker's strained relationship with his father, and was released only in Europe, where Rucker thought that his father would be unlikely to hear it. His country single "Alright" was inspired by his marriage. Rucker and his wife announced their conscious uncoupling in 2020.
Rucker is a friend of the golfer Tiger Woods, whom he met in a bar in 1993 when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding with Hootie & the Blowfish and at his father's funeral. His interest in golf goes well beyond his relationship with Woods; he was a VIP guest of Team USA at the 2016 Ryder Cup, and he attended Arnold Palmer's funeral shortly before the Cup.
On November 7, 2016, Rucker told ESPN that he had become a partner in MGC Sports, a sports agency that currently represents golfers (among them Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry), football players, and coaches. He added that he was planning to reduce his performance commitments from 100 dates per year to about 30, and that he thought that his experience in the entertainment business would be an asset to potential clients. Rucker will be able to work without restrictions for golfers, but because he is not registered with the NFL players' union, he initially will only be able to meet with NFL players under very limited circumstances.
For the Undercover Boss series episode "Celebrity Undercover Boss: Darius Rucker" which premiered May 12, 2017, Rucker disguised himself as a 62-year-old music teacher, ran an open mic night and worked as a roadie.
Philanthropy and impact
Rucker has regularly worked with charities that support sick and underprivileged children, via benefit concerts, volunteering, the World Golf Foundation's The First Tee Program, and the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation which has raised nearly $4.5 million to provide funding to public education systems throughout South Carolina.
He serves as a board member of the MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, where his mother worked for over thirty years from the time Rucker was a child, and has helped raise millions of dollars to help build a new hospital.
He also made a commitment to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital after touring the facility in 2008. Since then, Rucker has spearheaded an annual event resulting in over $1.6 million raised for St. Jude's to date.
Tours
Headlining
Southern Style Tour (2015)
Good for a Good Time (2016)
Co-headlining
Summer Plays on Tour (2018) with Lady Antebellum
Supporting
H2O II: Wetter and Wilder Tour with Brad Paisley (2012)
Own the Night Tour with Lady Antebellum (2012)
Discography
Studio albums
Back to Then (2002)
Learn to Live (2008)
Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
True Believers (2013)
Southern Style (2015)
When Was the Last Time (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Darius Rucker talks about True Believers on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country
1966 births
Living people
African-American rock musicians
African-American male singer-songwriters
American country singer-songwriters
African-American country musicians
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
American sports agents
American baritones
Atlantic Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Country musicians from South Carolina
Grammy Award winners
Hootie & the Blowfish members
Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
University of South Carolina alumni
Grand Ole Opry members
American contemporary R&B singers
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
American alternative rock musicians | false | [
"Love Remains is the debut studio album by How to Dress Well. Pitchfork placed it at number 19 on its list of \"The Top 50 Albums of 2010\".\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences \n\n2010 debut albums\nHow to Dress Well albums\nTri Angle (record label) albums",
"Sweet and Sentimental is the debut studio album by American country artist, Jan Howard. The album was released by Capitol Records in August 1962 and was produced by Ken Nelson. The record would be Howard's only studio album for the Capitol label and would be her last album release until 1966.\n\nBackground and content \nSweet and Sentimental comprises twelve tracks, mainly consisting of cover version of songs by other artists. The album was recorded in five separate sessions at the Columbia Recording Studio in Nashville, Tennessee between February and May 1962. Six of the album's twelve tracks had been written by Nashville songwriter Harlan Howard, who was also Jan's husband at the time. Some of these Howard-penned compositions on the album included \"He Called Me Baby\" (which Patsy Cline and Charlie Rich would later record) and \"Heartaches by the Number\" (which had already been a major hit for Guy Mitchell and Ray Price). Sweet and Sentimental also featured Willie Nelson's composition, \"Funny How Time Slips Away\" and a cover of Doris Day's \"Everybody Loves a Lover\". Additional sides that Howard recorded for Capitol during this time, including \"All Alone Again\" and \"My Baby's in Berlin\" were never issued on an official studio album.\n\nRelease \nSweet and Sentimental was officially released in August 1962 under Capitol Records. The album was originally issued on Vinyl and contained six tracks on both sides of the record. Although Capitol did issue singles by Howard, the album itself did not spawn any. Additionally, Sweet and Sentimental did not chart on any album chart by Billboard Magazine.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel \n Jan Howard – vocals\n Ken Nelson – producer\n\nReferences \n\n1962 albums\nJan Howard albums\nCapitol Records albums\nAlbums produced by Ken Nelson (United States record producer)"
] |
[
"Darius Rucker",
"2008-09: Learn to Live",
"When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he sing while in college in S. Carolina?",
"I don't know.",
"How many studio albums did he record?",
"Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009."
] | C_c654ef8eb7b54ec688bd6b5fc9d28684_0 | How did Rucker "flip the formula" | 4 | How did Darius Rucker "flip the formula"? | Darius Rucker | In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at NO. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61. Rucker's entry into the country world was met with some intrigue, largely because of his history as a rock musician and because he is African-American. Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972. CANNOTANSWER | The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. | Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with "Seven Spanish Angels".) It was followed by two more number one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three hit "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, "Come Back Song" and "This". His third country album True Believers (2013) reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles "True Believers" (#24), "Wagon Wheel" (#1), and "Radio" (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles "Homegrown Honey" (#6) and "Southern Style" (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Traveling Echoes. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern African-American upbringing. His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories. His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing was always his dream.
Hootie & the Blowfish
Darius Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" by fans, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.
Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.
In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us." After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they would be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while also releasing a new album that same year.
Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.
Solo career
In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott, and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On." The single "This Is My World" was featured in the 2001 comedy film Shallow Hal. In regards to the album, "That was just a minute in my life," he later told The Arizona Republic about the record. "I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill at that time, and I wanted to make a neo soul record." He also said in the article that he doesn't anticipate recording an R&B-styled disc again. "Country music is my day job now. I'll probably do this till it's all over, but that album was a lot of fun."
Rucker appeared on a pop-star edition of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in July 2001. He also portrayed a singing cowboy in a television commercial for the fast-food company Burger King, promoting its TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich in 2005. In the commercial, he sang a jingle set to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." In 2006 Rucker lent his voice to the track "God's Reasons" written by Dean Dinning and Joel A. Miller for the film The Still Life.
Country music
2008–2009: Learn to Live
In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983.
Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at No. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61.
Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972.
2010–2011: Charleston, SC 1966
Rucker released his second country album, Charleston, SC 1966, on October 12, 2010. The title is inspired by Radney Foster's solo debut album, Del Rio, TX 1959. Its first single was "Come Back Song," which Rucker wrote with Chris Stapleton and Casey Beathard. It was his fourth country number one as well as a NO. 37 hit on the Hot 100. The album's second single was "This", which was released to radio in November 2010 and also reached No. 1 in the country chart. Rucker wrote it with Rogers and Kara DioGuardi. "I Got Nothin'" was the album's third single, peaking at No. 18. Also included on the album is a duet with Brad Paisley titled "I Don't Care". Charleston, SC 1966 received a gold certification.
2012–2014: True Believers
On May 20, 2011, Rucker delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On December 14, 2011, CBSnews.com reported that Rucker was working on a third country album with recording set to begin January 2012 followed by the release of the album early in the year. The album's lead-off single, "True Believers," made its chart debut in September. On October 12, 2012, Rucker told Broadway's Electric Barnyard that his album would also be titled True Believers. "True Believers" peaked at No. 18. Its second single is a cover of Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor's "Wagon Wheel" (previously made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show), featuring backing vocals from Lady Antebellum. "Wagon Wheel" reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in May 2013. True Believers was released on May 21, 2013. The album's third single, "Radio", was released to country radio on July 22, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Miss You", was released to country radio on February 3, 2014.
On October 2, 2012, Rucker was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Halfway through his set at the Opry that night he answered questions from the audience which included a question from Brad Paisley. Paisley said: "I have two questions. One, are you still the worst poker player in the world? And two, would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Rucker accepted, and it became official on October 16.
Rucker was a featured performer at the C2C: Country to Country festival in London on March 17, 2013, which was headlined by Carrie Underwood.
On News Year's Day 2013. he sang the national anthem at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
On May 11, 2013, Rucker was the speaker at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Before his speech, he received an honorary doctorate of music.
Rucker also sang the national anthem at the NBA finals on June 16, 2013.
On December 6, 2013, it was announced that Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" had earned him a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. At the awards ceremony on January 26, 2014, Rucker won, becoming only the third African American recording act (the first being Charley Pride, the second being The Pointer Sisters) to win a vocal performance Grammy Award in a country music category.
2014–2015: Southern Style and Home for the Holidays
On August 25, 2014, Rucker released a new single titled "Homegrown Honey" to country radio and to digital retailers. It served as the lead single to his fourth country studio album, Southern Style, released on March 31, 2015. It reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart in April 2015. The album's second single, the title track, released to country radio on May 4, 2015.
On September 15, 2014, it was announced that Rucker had completed his first Christmas album and that it would be released on October 27, 2014. Included is a collaboration with Sheryl Crow on "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
May 30, 2015 Rucker headlined Philadelphia's famous XTU 31st Anniversary Show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Christopher Bousquet named President of the Hootie fan club
Rucker makes an appearance on Sister Hazel's 2016 album, Lighter in the Dark.
2016–present: When Was the Last Time
On January 6, 2016, Rucker announced that he was working on his fifth country album. The album's lead single, "If I Told You" was released to country radio on July 5, 2016. It reached number one in the Country Airplay chart nearly a year later, and peaked at number four on the Hot Country Chart. Rucker also returned to the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK in March 2017, where he was second on the bill to Reba McEntire.
On May 29, 2016, Rucker performed the national anthem prior to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Rucker also performed the national anthem for a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on September 15. Rucker agreed to perform the song at the behest of personal friend and former Bills player Bruce Smith, whose jersey was being retired that night. He sang the national anthem again ahead of the Saints-Dolphins game held at London's Wembley Stadium in October 2017, as part of the NFL International Series.
Rucker was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. On July 24, 2017, Rucker released the second single from his upcoming album, titled "For the First Time." On July 26, 2017, he shared details of his fifth country album, titled When Was the Last Time and it was released on October 20, 2017.
Rucker appeared as a mentor on seventeenth season of The Voice for Team Blake. Rucker released Beers and Sunshine in August 2020 under Capitol Records, and released a "summer mix" version of the song in 2021. In 2021, Rucker contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
Personal life
Rucker is an ardent South Carolina Gamecocks fan as well as a Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Reds fan. He also likes the film Stir Crazy, which he has seen more than 100 times. To show his loyalty to his University, he gave a free concert which was held at the Colonial Life Arena after the football team was able to win 6 games following a pair of losing seasons after joining the Southeastern Conference.
Rucker's mother died in November 1992 of a heart attack. His grief inspired two Hootie & the Blowfish songs: "I'm Goin' Home" and "Not Even the Trees." On April 21, 1995, his girlfriend (Elizabeth Ann Phillips) gave birth to Rucker's first child, Carolyn Pearl Phillips. Rucker married Beth Leonard in 2000. His second daughter, Daniella Rose, was born to his wife, Beth, on May 16, 2001. They had a son, Jack, in 2005. The Hootie song "Where Were You" is about Rucker's strained relationship with his father, and was released only in Europe, where Rucker thought that his father would be unlikely to hear it. His country single "Alright" was inspired by his marriage. Rucker and his wife announced their conscious uncoupling in 2020.
Rucker is a friend of the golfer Tiger Woods, whom he met in a bar in 1993 when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding with Hootie & the Blowfish and at his father's funeral. His interest in golf goes well beyond his relationship with Woods; he was a VIP guest of Team USA at the 2016 Ryder Cup, and he attended Arnold Palmer's funeral shortly before the Cup.
On November 7, 2016, Rucker told ESPN that he had become a partner in MGC Sports, a sports agency that currently represents golfers (among them Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry), football players, and coaches. He added that he was planning to reduce his performance commitments from 100 dates per year to about 30, and that he thought that his experience in the entertainment business would be an asset to potential clients. Rucker will be able to work without restrictions for golfers, but because he is not registered with the NFL players' union, he initially will only be able to meet with NFL players under very limited circumstances.
For the Undercover Boss series episode "Celebrity Undercover Boss: Darius Rucker" which premiered May 12, 2017, Rucker disguised himself as a 62-year-old music teacher, ran an open mic night and worked as a roadie.
Philanthropy and impact
Rucker has regularly worked with charities that support sick and underprivileged children, via benefit concerts, volunteering, the World Golf Foundation's The First Tee Program, and the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation which has raised nearly $4.5 million to provide funding to public education systems throughout South Carolina.
He serves as a board member of the MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, where his mother worked for over thirty years from the time Rucker was a child, and has helped raise millions of dollars to help build a new hospital.
He also made a commitment to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital after touring the facility in 2008. Since then, Rucker has spearheaded an annual event resulting in over $1.6 million raised for St. Jude's to date.
Tours
Headlining
Southern Style Tour (2015)
Good for a Good Time (2016)
Co-headlining
Summer Plays on Tour (2018) with Lady Antebellum
Supporting
H2O II: Wetter and Wilder Tour with Brad Paisley (2012)
Own the Night Tour with Lady Antebellum (2012)
Discography
Studio albums
Back to Then (2002)
Learn to Live (2008)
Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
True Believers (2013)
Southern Style (2015)
When Was the Last Time (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Darius Rucker talks about True Believers on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country
1966 births
Living people
African-American rock musicians
African-American male singer-songwriters
American country singer-songwriters
African-American country musicians
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
American sports agents
American baritones
Atlantic Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Country musicians from South Carolina
Grammy Award winners
Hootie & the Blowfish members
Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
University of South Carolina alumni
Grand Ole Opry members
American contemporary R&B singers
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
American alternative rock musicians | true | [
"The 2020 Kansas Senate election took place as part of the biennial 2020 United States elections. Kansas voters elected state senators in all of the state's 40 senate districts.\n\nRetirements\nFour incumbents did not run for re-election in 2020. Those incumbents are:\n\nRepublicans\nDistrict 8: Jim Denning: Retiring\nDistrict 30: Susan Wagle: Retiring\n\nDemocrats\nDistrict 7: Barbara Bollier: Retiring; ran for United States Senate\nDistrict 18: Vic Miller: Retiring\n\nIncumbents defeated\n\nIn primary elections\n\nRepublicans\nSeven Republicans lost renomination.\n\nDistrict 11: John Skubal lost renomination to Kellie Warren.\nDistrict 14: Bruce Givens lost renomination to Michael Fagg.\nDistrict 15: Dan Goddard lost renomination to Virgil Peck Jr.\nDistrict 20: Eric Rucker lost renomination to Brenda Dietrich.\nDistrict 24: Randall Hardy lost renomination to J. R. Claeys.\nDistrict 33: Mary Jo Taylor lost renomination to Alicia Straub.\nDistrict 34: Ed Berger lost renomination to Mark Steffen.\n\nIn the general election\n\nRepublican\nDistrict 5: Kevin Braun lost to Jeff Pittman.\n\nDemocratic\nDistrict 19: Anthony Hensley lost to Rick Kloos.\n\nPredictions\n\nResults summary\n\nClose races\nDistricts where the margin of victory was under 10%:\n District 22, 1.2% \n District 3, 2.04%\n District 19, 2.42% (flip) \n District 10, 3.72% \n District 30, 4.22% \n District 9, 4.52% \n District 11, 5.36% \n District 5, 6.04% (flip) \n District 23, 6.22% \n District 28, 8.1% \n District 8, 8.72% (flip) \n District 25, 9.18% \n District 21, 9.58%\n\nSummary of results by State Senate District\n\nReferences\n\nSenate\nKansas Senate\nKansas Senate elections",
"Lamman Rucker (born October 6, 1971) is an American actor. Rucker began his career on the daytime soap operas As the World Turns and All My Children, before roles in \"((The Temptations Miniseries))\", Tyler Perry's films Why Did I Get Married?, Why Did I Get Married Too?, and Meet the Browns, and its television adaptation. In 2016, he began starring as Jacob Greenleaf in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series, Greenleaf. Rucker is married to Kelly Davis Rucker, a graduate of Hampton University. Rucker also had a recurring guest spot on the 4th and final season of the hit UPN sitcom, Half & Half.\n\nEarly life\nRucker was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Malaya (née Ray) and Eric Rucker. He has partial ancestry from Barbados. Rucker spent his formative years in the greater Washington, DC, Maryland area. He hails from a very dedicated and supportive immediate and extended family. He first had an interest in acting after he was placed in many child pageants. His first acting role was as Martin Luther King in the 4th grade. He was in the drama club in 7th grade and then attended high school at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, D.C. Rucker studied at Carnegie-Mellon University and Duquesne University.\n\nOn August 29, 2019, he shared personal life experiences that he credits for his success with the Hampton University football team.\n\nCareer\nHis major role came in 2002 when he assumed the role of attorney T. Marshall Travers on the CBS daytime soap opera As the World Turns opposite Tamara Tunie. He left the series the following year and portrayed Garret Williams on ABC soap opera All My Children in 2005. He also had the recurring roles on the UPN sitcoms All of Us and Half & Half.\n\nRucker is best known for his roles in the Tyler Perry's films. He co-starred in Why Did I Get Married? (2007) and Why Did I Get Married Too? (2010). He played Will Brown in 2008 film Meet The Browns. He later had a starring role on Perry's sitcom Meet the Browns reprising his role as Will from 2009 to 2011. The following year after Meet the Browns, Rucker was cast in the male lead role opposite Anne Heche in the NBC comedy series Save Me, but left after pilot episode. He later had roles in a number of small movies and TV movies. Rucker also had regular role opposite Mena Suvari in the short-lived WE tv drama series, South of Hell.\n\nIn 2015, Rucker was cast as one of leads in the Oprah Winfrey Network drama series, Greenleaf. He plays Jacob Greenleaf, the eldest son of Lynn Whitfield' and Keith David's characters.\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1971 births\nLiving people\nMale actors from Pennsylvania\nAfrican-American male actors\nAmerican people of Barbadian descent\nAmerican male film actors\nAmerican male soap opera actors\nAmerican male television actors\nCarnegie Mellon University alumni\nDuquesne University alumni\n21st-century American male actors"
] |
[
"Darius Rucker",
"2008-09: Learn to Live",
"When was Hootie and the Blowfish formed?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he sing while in college in S. Carolina?",
"I don't know.",
"How many studio albums did he record?",
"Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009.",
"How did Rucker \"flip the formula\"",
"The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's \"Night Games\" in 1983."
] | C_c654ef8eb7b54ec688bd6b5fc9d28684_0 | What is special about Ruckers voice, even still today? | 5 | What is special about Darius Rucker voice, even till today? | Darius Rucker | In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983. Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009 and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at NO. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61. Rucker's entry into the country world was met with some intrigue, largely because of his history as a rock musician and because he is African-American. Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Darius Carlos Rucker (born May 13, 1966) is an American singer and songwriter. He first gained fame as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of rock band Hootie & the Blowfish, which he founded in 1986 at the University of South Carolina along with Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber. The band released five studio albums with Rucker as a member and charted six top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Rucker co-wrote most of the songs with the other members of the band.
He released a solo R&B album, Back to Then in 2002 on Hidden Beach Recordings but no singles from it charted. Six years later, Rucker signed to Capitol Nashville as a country music singer, releasing the album, Learn to Live that year. Its first single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It", made him the first black artist to reach number one on the Hot Country Songs charts since Charley Pride in 1983. (Ray Charles hit number one in March 1985 in a duet with Willie Nelson with "Seven Spanish Angels".) It was followed by two more number one singles, "It Won't Be Like This for Long" and "Alright" and the number three hit "History in the Making". In 2009, he became the first black American to win the New Artist Award from the Country Music Association, and the second black person to win any award from the association. A second album, Charleston, SC 1966, was released on October 12, 2010. The album includes the number one singles, "Come Back Song" and "This". His third country album True Believers (2013) reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the US Top Country Albums Billboard chart with singles "True Believers" (#24), "Wagon Wheel" (#1), and "Radio" (#14), all charting on the Billboard U.S. Country charts. His first country Christmas album, Home for the Holidays (2014) reached No. 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 7 on the US Country Chart. His fourth country album, Southern Style (2014) reached No. 6 (US Billboard 200) and No. 7 (Billboard US Top Country Albums), respectively with singles "Homegrown Honey" (#6) and "Southern Style" (#8) both charting on the U.S. Country charts in 2014 and 2015. His most recent country album When Was the Last Time (2017) charted #8 on the US Billboard 200 and #2 on the US Top Country Albums (Billboard).
Early life
Rucker was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. His single mother, Carolyn, a nurse at Medical University of South Carolina, raised him with his three sisters and two brothers. According to Rucker, his father was never around, and Rucker saw him only before church on Sundays. His father was in a gospel band called The Traveling Echoes. Rucker has said that he had a typical Southern African-American upbringing. His family attended church every Sunday and was economically poor, and at one point, his mother, her two sisters, his grandmother and 14 children were all living in a three-bedroom house. But he says that he looks back on his childhood with very fond memories. His sister, L'Corine, recalled that singing was always his dream.
Hootie & the Blowfish
Darius Rucker has been the lead singer of Hootie & the Blowfish since its formation in 1986. He met fellow band members Mark Bryan, Jim "Soni" Sonefeld, and Dean Felber while attending the University of South Carolina. Bryan first heard Rucker singing in the shower, and the two became a duo, playing R.E.M. covers at a local venue. They later recruited Felber and finally Sonefeld joined in 1989. As a member of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker has recorded six studio albums: Cracked Rear View – 1994, Fairweather Johnson – 1996, Musical Chairs – 1998, Scattered, Smothered & Covered – 2000, Hootie & the Blowfish and Looking for Lucky – 2005, also charting within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 six times. All six albums feature songs that Rucker, Bryan and Felber wrote. As the frontman, Rucker began to be called simply "Hootie" by fans, though the band title combines the nicknames of his college friends. Before his rise to fame, he lived in the basement of the Sigma Phi Epsilon house at the University of South Carolina, attempting to launch his career through the college bar scene.
Rucker's signature contribution to the band is his baritone voice, which Rolling Stone has called "ingratiating," TIME has called "low, gruff, [and] charismatic," and Entertainment Weekly has characterized as a "barrelhouse growl." Rucker said they "flipped" the formula of the all black band with a white frontman, like Frank Sinatra performing with Count Basie. Musically, he has sometimes been criticized or spoofed for not being "black enough". Saturday Night Live ran a sketch of Tim Meadows playing Rucker leading beer-drinking, white fraternity members in a counter-march to Louis Farrakhan's Million Man March. He also received death threats for singing the Hootie song "Drowning," a protest song against the flying of the Confederate flag above the South Carolina statehouse.
Shortly after gaining a measure of fame, Felber and Rucker (who consider themselves best friends) moved into an apartment in Columbia, South Carolina. With Rucker's recognition as the frontman of a successful band came increased opportunities. In October 1995, he was asked to sing the national anthem at the World Series. Frank Sinatra invited him to sing at his 80th birthday party; he sang "The Lady Is a Tramp." That same week, he made a voice cameo in an episode of the sitcom Friends. He also joined Nanci Griffith on the song "Gulf Coast Highway" for her 1997 album Blue Roses from the Moons, and sang backing vocals on Radney Foster's 1999 album See What You Want to See. He encouraged Atlantic Records to agree to a deal with Edwin McCain and made a guest appearance on McCain's debut album, Honor Among Thieves.
In regard to the future of Hootie & the Blowfish, Rucker was quoted by CBS news as stating in late 2011, "I don't think we'll ever break up totally. We're Hootie & the Blowfish. ... We'll make another record and do another tour someday. I don't know when, but it will happen. There's one more in us." After a ten-year hiatus, Rucker and the band announced that they would be touring with Barenaked Ladies in 2019 while also releasing a new album that same year.
Their sixth studio album Imperfect Circle was released on November 1, 2019.
Solo career
In 2001, he made his solo R&B debut album, The Return of Mongo Slade, for Atlantic Records. Because of contractual changes, it was never released by the label. Hidden Beach Recordings, an independent label, acquired the masters from Atlantic and released the album as Back to Then in July 2002. The album included work from the production team of Jill Scott, and she made an appearance on the track "Hold On." The single "This Is My World" was featured in the 2001 comedy film Shallow Hal. In regards to the album, "That was just a minute in my life," he later told The Arizona Republic about the record. "I was listening to a lot of Notorious B.I.G. and Lauryn Hill at that time, and I wanted to make a neo soul record." He also said in the article that he doesn't anticipate recording an R&B-styled disc again. "Country music is my day job now. I'll probably do this till it's all over, but that album was a lot of fun."
Rucker appeared on a pop-star edition of the quiz show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in July 2001. He also portrayed a singing cowboy in a television commercial for the fast-food company Burger King, promoting its TenderCrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch sandwich in 2005. In the commercial, he sang a jingle set to the tune of "Big Rock Candy Mountain." In 2006 Rucker lent his voice to the track "God's Reasons" written by Dean Dinning and Joel A. Miller for the film The Still Life.
Country music
2008–2009: Learn to Live
In early 2008, Rucker signed to Capitol Records Nashville as the beginning of a career in country music. His first solo single, "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" (which he co-wrote with Clay Mills) debuted at No. 51 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts for the week of May 3, 2008. It is the first single from his second album, Learn to Live. For this album, Rucker worked with Frank Rogers, a record producer who has also produced for Brad Paisley and Trace Adkins. Rucker also made his Grand Ole Opry debut in July 2008. The single reached number one in September, making Rucker the first solo, African-American artist to chart a number one country hit since Charley Pride's "Night Games" in 1983.
Learn to Live was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on February 6, 2009, and received a platinum certification on August 7, 2009. The album's second single, "It Won't Be Like This for Long", spent three weeks at the top of the country chart in mid-2009. Its follow-up, "Alright", became Rucker's third straight No. 1 hit, making him the first singer to have his first three country singles reach No. 1 since Wynonna in 1992. The album's fourth single, "History in the Making" was released in September and peaked at No. 3. The singles also crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at 35, 36, 30 and 61.
Billboard magazine said that "there's a sense of purpose that makes Rucker feel like a member of the country family, rather than calculating interloper." Rucker made visits to various country stations around the United States, explaining that he was aware that he was the "new kid on the block." Mike Culotta, the program director of Tampa, Florida, radio station WQYK-FM expected that Rucker would be "somebody who would have entitlement," but instead said that "Darius engaged everybody." When Rucker found that "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" went to number one, he cried. On November 11, 2009, Rucker won the Country Music Association New Artist of the Year award (formerly known as the Horizon Award), making him the first African American to do so since the award was introduced in 1981. Only one other African American has won at the CMAs: Charley Pride, who won entertainer of the year in 1971 and male vocalist in 1971 and 1972.
2010–2011: Charleston, SC 1966
Rucker released his second country album, Charleston, SC 1966, on October 12, 2010. The title is inspired by Radney Foster's solo debut album, Del Rio, TX 1959. Its first single was "Come Back Song," which Rucker wrote with Chris Stapleton and Casey Beathard. It was his fourth country number one as well as a NO. 37 hit on the Hot 100. The album's second single was "This", which was released to radio in November 2010 and also reached No. 1 in the country chart. Rucker wrote it with Rogers and Kara DioGuardi. "I Got Nothin'" was the album's third single, peaking at No. 18. Also included on the album is a duet with Brad Paisley titled "I Don't Care". Charleston, SC 1966 received a gold certification.
2012–2014: True Believers
On May 20, 2011, Rucker delivered the commencement address to the graduating class of the Medical University of South Carolina.
On December 14, 2011, CBSnews.com reported that Rucker was working on a third country album with recording set to begin January 2012 followed by the release of the album early in the year. The album's lead-off single, "True Believers," made its chart debut in September. On October 12, 2012, Rucker told Broadway's Electric Barnyard that his album would also be titled True Believers. "True Believers" peaked at No. 18. Its second single is a cover of Bob Dylan and Ketch Secor's "Wagon Wheel" (previously made famous by Old Crow Medicine Show), featuring backing vocals from Lady Antebellum. "Wagon Wheel" reached No. 1 on the Country Airplay chart in May 2013. True Believers was released on May 21, 2013. The album's third single, "Radio", was released to country radio on July 22, 2013. The album's fourth single, "Miss You", was released to country radio on February 3, 2014.
On October 2, 2012, Rucker was invited to join the Grand Ole Opry. Halfway through his set at the Opry that night he answered questions from the audience which included a question from Brad Paisley. Paisley said: "I have two questions. One, are you still the worst poker player in the world? And two, would you like to become the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry?" Rucker accepted, and it became official on October 16.
Rucker was a featured performer at the C2C: Country to Country festival in London on March 17, 2013, which was headlined by Carrie Underwood.
On News Year's Day 2013. he sang the national anthem at the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida.
On May 11, 2013, Rucker was the speaker at the commencement ceremony for the University of South Carolina in Columbia. Before his speech, he received an honorary doctorate of music.
Rucker also sang the national anthem at the NBA finals on June 16, 2013.
On December 6, 2013, it was announced that Rucker's version of "Wagon Wheel" had earned him a nomination for Best Country Solo Performance for the 56th Annual Grammy Awards. At the awards ceremony on January 26, 2014, Rucker won, becoming only the third African American recording act (the first being Charley Pride, the second being The Pointer Sisters) to win a vocal performance Grammy Award in a country music category.
2014–2015: Southern Style and Home for the Holidays
On August 25, 2014, Rucker released a new single titled "Homegrown Honey" to country radio and to digital retailers. It served as the lead single to his fourth country studio album, Southern Style, released on March 31, 2015. It reached No. 2 on the Country Airplay chart in April 2015. The album's second single, the title track, released to country radio on May 4, 2015.
On September 15, 2014, it was announced that Rucker had completed his first Christmas album and that it would be released on October 27, 2014. Included is a collaboration with Sheryl Crow on "Baby, It's Cold Outside".
May 30, 2015 Rucker headlined Philadelphia's famous XTU 31st Anniversary Show at the Susquehanna Bank Center. Christopher Bousquet named President of the Hootie fan club
Rucker makes an appearance on Sister Hazel's 2016 album, Lighter in the Dark.
2016–present: When Was the Last Time
On January 6, 2016, Rucker announced that he was working on his fifth country album. The album's lead single, "If I Told You" was released to country radio on July 5, 2016. It reached number one in the Country Airplay chart nearly a year later, and peaked at number four on the Hot Country Chart. Rucker also returned to the C2C: Country to Country festival in the UK in March 2017, where he was second on the bill to Reba McEntire.
On May 29, 2016, Rucker performed the national anthem prior to the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500. Rucker also performed the national anthem for a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on September 15. Rucker agreed to perform the song at the behest of personal friend and former Bills player Bruce Smith, whose jersey was being retired that night. He sang the national anthem again ahead of the Saints-Dolphins game held at London's Wembley Stadium in October 2017, as part of the NFL International Series.
Rucker was selected as one of 30 artists to perform on "Forever Country", a mash-up track of "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "On the Road Again" and "I Will Always Love You", which celebrates 50 years of the CMA Awards. On July 24, 2017, Rucker released the second single from his upcoming album, titled "For the First Time." On July 26, 2017, he shared details of his fifth country album, titled When Was the Last Time and it was released on October 20, 2017.
Rucker appeared as a mentor on seventeenth season of The Voice for Team Blake. Rucker released Beers and Sunshine in August 2020 under Capitol Records, and released a "summer mix" version of the song in 2021. In 2021, Rucker contributed a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters" to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist.
Personal life
Rucker is an ardent South Carolina Gamecocks fan as well as a Miami Dolphins and Cincinnati Reds fan. He also likes the film Stir Crazy, which he has seen more than 100 times. To show his loyalty to his University, he gave a free concert which was held at the Colonial Life Arena after the football team was able to win 6 games following a pair of losing seasons after joining the Southeastern Conference.
Rucker's mother died in November 1992 of a heart attack. His grief inspired two Hootie & the Blowfish songs: "I'm Goin' Home" and "Not Even the Trees." On April 21, 1995, his girlfriend (Elizabeth Ann Phillips) gave birth to Rucker's first child, Carolyn Pearl Phillips. Rucker married Beth Leonard in 2000. His second daughter, Daniella Rose, was born to his wife, Beth, on May 16, 2001. They had a son, Jack, in 2005. The Hootie song "Where Were You" is about Rucker's strained relationship with his father, and was released only in Europe, where Rucker thought that his father would be unlikely to hear it. His country single "Alright" was inspired by his marriage. Rucker and his wife announced their conscious uncoupling in 2020.
Rucker is a friend of the golfer Tiger Woods, whom he met in a bar in 1993 when Woods was 18. Rucker sang at the golfer's wedding with Hootie & the Blowfish and at his father's funeral. His interest in golf goes well beyond his relationship with Woods; he was a VIP guest of Team USA at the 2016 Ryder Cup, and he attended Arnold Palmer's funeral shortly before the Cup.
On November 7, 2016, Rucker told ESPN that he had become a partner in MGC Sports, a sports agency that currently represents golfers (among them Steve Stricker and Kenny Perry), football players, and coaches. He added that he was planning to reduce his performance commitments from 100 dates per year to about 30, and that he thought that his experience in the entertainment business would be an asset to potential clients. Rucker will be able to work without restrictions for golfers, but because he is not registered with the NFL players' union, he initially will only be able to meet with NFL players under very limited circumstances.
For the Undercover Boss series episode "Celebrity Undercover Boss: Darius Rucker" which premiered May 12, 2017, Rucker disguised himself as a 62-year-old music teacher, ran an open mic night and worked as a roadie.
Philanthropy and impact
Rucker has regularly worked with charities that support sick and underprivileged children, via benefit concerts, volunteering, the World Golf Foundation's The First Tee Program, and the Hootie & The Blowfish Foundation which has raised nearly $4.5 million to provide funding to public education systems throughout South Carolina.
He serves as a board member of the MUSC Children's Hospital in Charleston, where his mother worked for over thirty years from the time Rucker was a child, and has helped raise millions of dollars to help build a new hospital.
He also made a commitment to support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital after touring the facility in 2008. Since then, Rucker has spearheaded an annual event resulting in over $1.6 million raised for St. Jude's to date.
Tours
Headlining
Southern Style Tour (2015)
Good for a Good Time (2016)
Co-headlining
Summer Plays on Tour (2018) with Lady Antebellum
Supporting
H2O II: Wetter and Wilder Tour with Brad Paisley (2012)
Own the Night Tour with Lady Antebellum (2012)
Discography
Studio albums
Back to Then (2002)
Learn to Live (2008)
Charleston, SC 1966 (2010)
True Believers (2013)
Southern Style (2015)
When Was the Last Time (2017)
Filmography
Awards and nominations
References
External links
Darius Rucker talks about True Believers on Ben Sorensen's REAL Country
1966 births
Living people
African-American rock musicians
African-American male singer-songwriters
American country singer-songwriters
African-American country musicians
American rock singers
American rock songwriters
American sports agents
American baritones
Atlantic Records artists
Capitol Records artists
Country musicians from South Carolina
Grammy Award winners
Hootie & the Blowfish members
Musicians from Charleston, South Carolina
University of South Carolina alumni
Grand Ole Opry members
American contemporary R&B singers
Participants in American reality television series
Singer-songwriters from South Carolina
American alternative rock musicians | false | [
"The Ruckers family (variants: Ruckaert, Ruckaerts, Rucqueer, Rueckers, Ruekaerts, Ruijkers, Rukkers, Rycardt) were harpsichord and virginal makers from the Southern Netherlands based in Antwerp in the 16th and 17th century. Their influence stretched well into the 18th century, and to the harpsichord revival of the 20th.\n\nThe Ruckers family contributed immeasurably to the harpsichord's technical development, pioneering the addition of a second manual; the quality of their instruments is such that the name of Ruckers is as important to early keyboard instruments as that of Stradivarius is to the violin family. In the 18th century, Ruckers instruments were often modified by French makers in a process known as ravalement, to allow for an extended range and other additions.\n\nThe Ruckers family\nThe family probably originated in Germany. The earliest known member, Hans Ruckers, was from Weissenburg, according to documents from 1530 in the Antwerp city archives, and the similarly named Arnold Rucker was a German organ builder in the city in 1520.\n\nHans Ruckers (1540s–1598) was born in Mechelen. In 1575 he married Adriana Cnaeps; harpsichord maker Marten van der Biest was a witness at the wedding, though it is not known what their working relationship was. Hans Ruckers was a Catholic and had 11 children, two of whom became harpsichord makers, and his daughter Catharina (to whom harpsichord maker Willem Gompaerts (c.1534 – after 1600) was godfather) married into the instrument-making Couchet family, ensuring a strong continuation of both dynasties; his son Joannes continued in the family craft. Hans Ruckers became a member of the Guild of St Luke in 1579, and a citizen of Antwerp in 1594; he lived very near the artist Rubens in the Jodenstraat. He signed his instruments by working his initials into the rose. Instruments by him in existence today are virginals from the 1580s and 1590s now in Berlin, Bruges, New York, Paris and Yale University. He was also an organ builder, though none by him remains; he is known to have worked on the organs of St. Jacobskerk and Antwerp Cathedral.\n\nJoannes Ruckers (variants: Ioannes, Hans, Jan) (15 January 1578 – 29 September 1642) was the first son of Hans Ruckers, and also became a harpsichord and organ maker. He lived his life in Antwerp. He and brother Andreas became partners in their father's business upon his death, Joannes becoming sole owner in 1608. He joined the Guild of St Luke in 1611; his entry reads 'Hans Rukers, sone, claversigmaker'; following this he engraved 'IR' into the rose of his instruments, rather than his father's 'HR'. He worked for the archdukes of the Netherlands in Brussels from 1616. His nephew Joannes Couchet joined his workshop around 1627, taking it over after his death. Around 35 of his instruments are in existence today.\n\nAndreas Ruckers I (or Andries) (30 August 1579 – after 1645) was the second son of Hans Ruckers, and likewise became a harpsichord maker based in Antwerp. In 1605 he married; three of his children survived to adulthood. Details of his life are scarce after he sold his share in the family business to his brother Joannes in 1608. He remained a harpsichord maker, was still alive in September 1645 and may have lived ten years or more after that date. His surviving instruments are dated from 1607 to 1644, and are in collections all over the world.\n\nAndreas Ruckers II (or Andries) (31 March 1607 – before 1667) was the son of Andreas Ruckers I, from whom he learned his craft. A 1638 entry in the records of the Guild of St Luke that reads, \"Rickart, claversingelmaker, wijnmeester\" may refer to him. He married Joanna Hechts that year; they had six children, and she died of the plague in 1653. Seven of his instruments, built in the 1640s and 1650s, are known to exist in collections around the world. He was the last of the Ruckers family under that name. See Couchet for another branch of the family.\n\nThere may have been another Ruckers maker as yet unidentified: two virginals built in the 17th-century Ruckers tradition have similar roses with the initials 'CR'; they were once thought to have been the work of Christoffel Ruckers, a 16th-century organ player living in Dendermonde, but he is now generally excluded as a possible maker.\n\nRuckers harpsichords and virginals\n\nExisting virginals made by the Ruckers family are rectangular (one is six-sided) with the keyboard positioned either to the left (spinet) or right (muselar) of centre and a single set of strings running parallel to the long side. Spinetten had their plucking point near the end of the string, while muselaars had a plucking point close to the middle of the string; the difference in sound between the two is easily audible. The pitch of the instrument varied according to its size; the largest sounded at the standard pitch of the time, something like a'=415 Hz, while smaller virginals were pitched a tone, 4th, 5th, 8ve or a 9th higher.\n\nSome virginals were built as double instrument, with a normal-pitch instrument combined with one pitched an octave higher; this was known as 'the mother with the child', marked 'M' (Moeder) and 'k' (kind) as the smaller instrument was normally stored in a space beside the keyboard of the larger. The actions combined when the octave instrument was fitted on top of the regular one, enabling the musician to play both at once. They occasionally built other compound instruments, fitting a virginal into the empty space left by the harpsichord's bentside.\n\nBoth single and double manual harpsichords made by the Ruckers family had the disposition 8' 4', with each keyboard having a set of jacks for each set of strings. The standard compass of the Ruckers keyboard is from short octave C/E to c''' or d'''. Double manual harpsichords had their keyboards uncoupled and aligned to sound a 4th (occasionally a 5th) apart, with the upper manual at standard pitch and the lower pitched below it; when each manual was being used the jacks of the other manual were disengaged. The Ruckers double manual harpsichord thus worked as two instruments in one, pitched a 4th apart. Later two-manual harpsichords keyboards had the two sets of strings tuned together or antiphonally at the same pitch, for timbral contrasts.\n \nVariations of the standard models were sometimes produced for export to France or England; there are single manual harpsichords with chromatic basses (rather than the short octave) down to C, probably intended for England, and double manual harpsichords with a lower-manual range of GG to c''' and an upper manual range of F to f''', produced for France, the lower manual being at standard pitch and the upper a 4th below, reversing the usual pitch arrangement. The lower manual range of these instruments suits the music of contemporary French harpsichord composers such as Chambonnières and Louis Couperin, while the upper manual range is close to early French organ design.\n\nWhen constructing an instrument, a number was written on the case and many of the parts of the action, along with a serial number depending on the model. This has let researchers learn much more about undated instruments and helped them estimate the rate of production—calculated at up to 35 to 40 instruments per year.\n\nDecoration of an instrument was as careful and elaborate as its construction; repeating Renaissance patterns were block-printed onto paper and placed inside the keywell and around the inside of the case above the soundboard. Large Latin mottoes were printed similarly on a wood-grained paper on the inside of the lid. Alternatively, the lid was painted by artists like Rubens and Brueghel. The exterior was painted in imitation of marble or huge jewels held by iron strapwork. The rose in the soundboard is surrounded by a painted wreath of flowers and other flora and fauna in tempera. The roses used by all members of the Ruckers family show an angel playing a harp, with the initials of the builder on each side of it; the date was found either on the soundboard or the wrest plank.\n\nLegacy and the French practice of ravalement\n\nRuckers instruments have always been valued for the beauty of their resonant, balanced tone, which they achieved through thoroughly masterful design and excellent craftsmanship, still studied as a model by harpsichord makers today.\n\nIn the 17th and 18th centuries, Ruckers instruments were more highly valued than those of any other maker, and the tone was regarded as an ideal in most of Northern Europe. This led to the inevitable production of counterfeits by unscrupulous makers, of which some survive today and have been firmly identified as such, but also an updating and rebuilding of true Ruckers instruments to suit modern tastes. Particularly in Paris, Ruckers harpsichords were extended in range and sometimes completely rebuilt (by makers such as Blanchet, Taskin and Goermans) in a process called ravalement or grand ravalement, with re-alignment of two-manual keyboards at the unison, replacement of the action and redecoration of the case. The characteristic Ruckers tone was ensured by keeping the soundboard unaltered; some makers used only the original soundboard, advertising the final instrument as a 'Ruckers'.\n\nSuch was the lasting influence of Ruckers that their methods of construction had been absorbed by the major harpsichord-making traditions of England, France, Germany, Flanders and Scandinavia by the mid-18th century.\n\nReferences\n\nGrant O'Brien: Ruckers: a Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1990)\nFrank Hubbard: Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making (Harvard University Press, 1965)\nJeannine Lambrechts-Douillez and Grant O'Brien: 'Ruckers [Ruckaert, Ruckaerts, Rucqueer, Rueckers, Ruekaerts, Ruijkers, Rukkers, Rycardt]', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2007-05-22), http://www.grovemusic.com/\n\nSee also\nList of historical harpsichord makers\n\nFurther reading\n\nDonald H. Boalch: Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440–1840, Oxford University Press ASIN: 019318429X; 3rd edition (1995)\nR. Russell: The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959)\nJ. Lambrechts-Douillez: Documents dealing with the Ruckers Family and Antwerp Harpsichord Building and J.H. van der Meer: More about Flemish Two-Manual Harpsichords, both in Keyboard Instruments: Studies in Keyboard Organology, ed. E.M. Ripin (Edinburgh, 1971)\nThe Golden Age of Flemish Harpsichord Making: A Study of the MIM's Ruckers Instruments, ed. Pascale Vandervellen (Brussels, Belgium, Musical Instruments Museum, 2017)\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links \n\nRuckers instruments at the MIM Ruckers instruments in the Musical Instruments Museum MIM, Brussels\nInstruments of the Ruckers family on the online database MIMO, website mimo-international.com.\nAppeal for the restoration of the 1636 Ruckers-Hemsch harpsichord – in the Cobbe Collection at Hatchlands Park\nHarpsichord by Andreas Ruckers, Antwerp, 1643 – at the National Music Museum\nHarpsichord by Andreas Ruckers the Elder, Antwerp, 1607 – at the National Music Museum\nDouble Virginal by Hans Ruckers the Elder, 1581 – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art\nMuselar virginal by Jan Ruckers, 1622 – at the Metropolitan Museum of Art\nCopy of a 'French' Ruckers harpsichord – by Grant O’Brien\nThe official site of the Ruckers Society – by Mrs. J. Lambrechts-Douillez & the Ruckers Society\n\nBelgian musical instrument makers\nDutch musical instrument makers\nHarpsichord makers\nFlemish pipe organ builders",
"The Couchet family were Flemish harpsichord and virginal makers in Antwerp, closely associated with, and descendants of, the Ruckers family.\n\nJoannes Couchet (or Jan Couchet) (2 February 1615 – 30 March 1655) was a grandson of Hans Ruckers. He became the apprentice of his uncle Joannes Ruckers in 1626 and became a master after the latter's death in 1642. There are five instruments known to be by Joannes Couchet still in existence, most of which have had ravalements, all dating from around 1650. Three of his seven children became harpsichord makers:\n\nPetrus Joannes Couchet became a master harpsichord maker and member of the Guild of St Luke in 1655 or 1656;\n\nJoseph Joannes Couchet became a member in 1666 or 1667. His instruments in existence today are a single manual harpsichord dated 1671 (possibly by Petrus Joannes), given a ravalement and made into a double manual by Pascal Taskin in 1778; a single manual harpsichord dated 1679; and a double manual harpsichord dated 1680 and again given a grand ravalement by Taskin in 1781; a similar unsigned instrument likewise worked on by Taskin may also have been his.\n\nMaria Abraham Couchet likewise became a member of the guild in 1666 or 1667.\n\nJoannes Couchet's instruments are virtually identical to those of the Ruckers family; some later instruments signed by Joannes Ruckers were probably made by Joannes Couchet during his apprenticeship. The Couchet family went on to make further innovations to the models established by Ruckers, building a double manual harpsichord with extended range of FF to d''', and sometimes introducing registrations of 8' 8' or 8' 8' 4' instead of the then-usual 8' 4'. Joseph Joannes Couchet made a harpsichord (1679) with two sets of jacks for one 8' set of strings.\n\nReferences\n\nJ. Lambrechts-Douillez, eds.: De familie Couchet/The Couchet Family (Antwerp, 1986)\nGrant O'Brien: Ruckers: a Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 1990)\nFrank Hubbard: Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making (Harvard University Press, 1965)\nDonald H. Boalch: Makers of the Harpsichord and Clavichord 1440-1840, Oxford University Press ASIN: 019318429X; 3rd edition (1995)\nR. Russell: The Harpsichord and Clavichord (London, 1959)\nG. Grant O'Brien: 'Couchet', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2007-05-22), http://www.grovemusic.com/\n\nBelgian musical instrument makers\nHarpsichord makers"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth"
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | Did she write any books about sexual impulse? | 1 | Did Havelock Ellis write any books about sexual impulse? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"The Impulse to Preserve is Robert Gardner's 2006 memoir about his career creating actuality films. The book's title comes from the Philip Larkin quotation: \"The impulse to preserve lies at the bottom of all art.\"\n\nReferences\n\nThe Impulse to Preserve: Reflections of a Filmmaker\n\nExternal links\n Robert Gardner website\n\nNon-fiction books about film directors and producers\nShow business memoirs\n2006 non-fiction books",
"Anna Katarina Wennstam, (born 9 August 1973) is a Swedish journalist, author, debater, moderator and lecturer. She grew up in Gothenburg but today lives in Nacka. She has previously worked as a crime reporter for SVT, but resigned in 2007 to write and be a lecturer full-time. Wennstam has authored two books with documentary elements about rape and abuse of women. The books have created debate in Sweden about rape, abuse and sexual violence, as well as how female victims are treated in the courts. She also criticizes medias coverage of these kind of crimes in her books.\n\nHer book \"Flickan och skulden\" (The girl and the guilt) was nominated for the Swedish August-prize and she also won Vilhelm Moberg-scholarship and the journalist-prize issued by Sveriges advokatsamfund (The Swedish Bar association).\n\nBibliography\n2002 – Flickan och skulden: en bok om samhällets syn på våldtäkt ()\n2004 – En riktig våldtäktsman]]: en bok om samhällets syn på våldtäkt ()\n2007 – Smuts ()\n2008 – Dödergök () \n2010 – Alfahannen ()\n2012 – Svikaren () \n2013 – Stenhjärtat ()\n2014 – Skuggorna ()\n2015 – Skymningsflickan ()\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\nLiving people\n1973 births\nSwedish writers"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What was the name of the book? | 2 | What was the name of the book Havelock Ellis wrote about sexual impulse? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | Psychology of Sex, | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"Old Book is the name given to a purported ghost or spirit that haunts a cemetery and tree on the grounds of the Peoria State Hospital in Bartonville, Illinois. While rumors of ghosts and ghost stories are highly speculative, the Old Book tale has been documented many times. Among those documenting the tale is the first director of the state insane asylum, George Zeller.\n\nThe living Old Book\nThe name Old Book is the name given to a popular patient at the hospital. The well-liked Old Book worked as a gravedigger during his time at Peoria State Hospital. It is said that following burial services for deceased patients he would lean against an old elm tree and weep for the dead. Various sources report that Old Book's official name was recorded as Manual Bookbinder aka A. Bookbinder (1878 - 1910), grave marker 713 on the cemetery grounds. It is said that Old Book was mute, so no one could ask him his name. No one knows what his given name was, but he is allegedly called Bookbinder because of his previous occupation at the printing house where he worked before he was brought to the hospital. Despite his disabilities, he was one of the staff's most favored patients.\n\nThe Crying Tree\nThe superstitious tale surrounding Old Book is somewhat unusual among ghost stories in that it was reportedly witnessed by hundreds of people. The story goes that when Old Book died his funeral was attended by hundreds of patients and staff members who became witnesses to the ghostly phenomena that was about to transpire. As workers were attempting to lower what should have been a heavy casket they discovered that it instead felt empty. Suddenly, a crying sound echoed from the Graveyard Elm and everyone in attendance turned and looked, including Dr. Zeller, who later detailed Bookbinder and the surrounding events in his diary. They all claimed to have seen Old Book standing by the tree. They so believed it to be true that Zeller had the casket opened to ensure that Old Book still lay inside. As the lid was opened the crying ceased and Old Book's corpse was found undisturbed in the coffin. Days passed and the tree began to die. Several of the grounds crewmen tried to remove the Graveyard Elm or the \"crying tree\", as it was also known. None were successful, citing the weeping emanating from the tree. One man even tried to cut it down with an axe, but when striking the side, terrible wailing would sound as if Old Book himself was being chopped. \n\nIn later years the elm was struck during a lightning storm and was finally removed from the potters field.\n\nSee also\nList of ghosts\n\nNotes\n\nExternal links\n Bartonville Insane Asylum: on Prairieghosts.com\n\n \n\nAmerican ghosts\nPeoria County, Illinois",
"Paanchi (), a person in the Book of Mormon (), was one of the sons of Pahoran who contended for the judgement-seat of the Nephite people. He was executed in about 50 BC for plotting to seize the judgement-seat by violent rebellion.\n\nPossible origin of the name \nHugh Nibley relates the name to Egypt, and states:\n\n\"The first high priest [of the twenty-first dynasty in Egypt] was called Korihor, and his son was called Piankhi - two Book of Mormon names. They have the same relationship in the Book of Mormon. Paanchi is one of the high judges... Piankhi was a very famous name by the time Lehi left Jerusalem. It was a priestly name, and a royal name. Some people say it was Piankhi who founded the twenty-fifth dynasty [of Egypt]; some say it was Shabako.\"\n\nMormon scholars have speculated that the presence of the name \"Paanchi\" in the Book of Mormon indicates that claims of ancient Nubian influence in Pre-Columbian America (specifically, in the time of Nubian King Paanchi) and claims of the Book of Mormon to be an authentic record from ancient America are mutually supportive. If so, that would also mean that some of the Book of Mormon people had African roots. At least three different migrations from the Old World to the Americas are described in the Book of Mormon, and that would imply that there were others that were unknown to the Nephite writers.\n\nSee also\nLinguistics and the Book of Mormon\nArchaeology and the Book of Mormon\n\nReferences \n\nBook of Mormon people"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,"
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What did he say in the book? | 3 | What did Havelock Ellis say in Psychology of Sex? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"Photograph is a photography book by Ringo Starr. The book is a collection of 240 photographs of Starr's that also serves as an autobiography through the photo captions. The title of the book is the also the title of his 1973 single \"Photograph\". The book was first published in 2013 in a deluxe 2,500-copy limited edition by Genesis Publications, and later in a mass edition in 2015.\n\nBackground\nThe book contains photographs of Starr and his family while growing up, and photographs he took himself during his time with the Beatles. According to Starr, he did not want to write a autobiography but wanted instead to do it in the form of photographs. He said: \"Pictures are great because they remind you of so much. If one of these pictures is, let's say, September of 1964, if you were just to ask me 'What did you do then?' No idea! But oh, there's the shot, and all those memories kick in.\" \n\nStarr thought he had lost the photographs he took, but found them including two boxes of negatives in storage in a basement while looking for material for a Grammy Museum exhibit. Some of these photographs were displayed at the National Portrait Gallery in London starting 9 September 2015 to coincide with the release of the mass edition. This edition as well as a limited edition of sets of photographic prints were initially released for sale at the gallery, but later became available in book shops on 21 September 2015.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Photograph at Genesis Publications\n\nEnglish-language books\n2015 non-fiction books\nBooks about photography\nBooks by Ringo Starr",
"Family Sayings (Original title Lessico famigliare) is a novel by the Italian author Natalia Ginzburg, first published in 1963. The book, which has also been published in English under the titles The Things We Used to Say and Family Lexicon, is a semi-biographical description of aspects of the daily life of her family, dominated by her father, the renowned histologist, Giuseppe Levi. The book is both an ironic and affectionate chronicle of life in the period 1920-1950, portrayed in terms of habits, behavior and, above all, linguistic communications, from which the book takes its title. People and events are brought to life by what they do and what they say. In addition to family members, including her mother, father, brothers and sisters the book also describes many friends and acquaintances.\n\nThe book covers the period of fascism in Italy and the early post-war years. It describes the death in custody of her husband Leone Ginzburg, a noted anti-fascist, and the persecution of the Jews in Italy during the period of Benito Mussolini. It ends with the suicide of the writer Cesare Pavese in 1950 and disillusionment at the failure to achieve the aims of the war-time resistance movement.\n\nThe novel won the Strega Prize in 1963.\n\nPublished versions\n\nEnglish translations\n\n20th-century Italian novels\n1963 novels\nStrega Prize-winning works"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\""
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed? | 4 | What age approximately did Havelock Ellis say that sex impulse developed? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"In criminal law, irresistible impulse is a defense by excuse, in this case some sort of insanity, in which the defendant argues that they should not be held criminally liable for their actions that broke the law, because they could not control those actions, even if they knew them to be wrong. It was added to the M'Naghten rule as a basis for acquittal in the mid 20th century.\n\nIn 1994, Lorena Bobbitt was found not guilty when her defense argued that an irresistible impulse led her to cut off her husband's penis.\n\nThe Penal Code of the U.S. state of California states (2002), \"The defense of diminished capacity is hereby abolished ... there shall be no defense of ... diminished responsibility or irresistible impulse...\"\n\nThe \"policeman at the elbow\" test is a test used by some courts to determine whether the defendant was insane when they committed a crime. It is a variant of the M'Naghten Rules that addresses the situation in which the defendant knew that what they were going to do was wrong, but had no ability to restrain themself from doing it. The test asks whether they would have done what they did even if a police officer were standing at their elbow, hence its name.\n\nIrresistible impulse in English law\nIn English law the concept of \"irresistible impulse\" was developed in the 1960 case R v. Byrne. The appellant (described as a violent sexual psychopath) strangled then mutilated a young woman, it was alleged that Byrne suffered from violent and perverted sexual desires which he found impossible to control. Lord Parker C.J. broadened the definition of \"abnormality of mind\" to include those lacking \"the ability to exercise will-power to control acts in accordance with [their] rational judgment\".\n\n\"Irresistible impulse\" can be pleaded only under the defense of diminished responsibility, not under the defense of insanity. Thus it operates only as a partial defence to murder, reducing the charge to manslaughter, and giving the judge discretion as to length of sentence and whether committal would be more appropriate than incarceration.\n\nSee also\n Impulse control disorder\n Anatomy of a Murder\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nMental health law\nCriminal defenses",
"Impulse invariance is a technique for designing discrete-time infinite-impulse-response (IIR) filters from continuous-time filters in which the impulse response of the continuous-time system is sampled to produce the impulse response of the discrete-time system. The frequency response of the discrete-time system will be a sum of shifted copies of the frequency response of the continuous-time system; if the continuous-time system is approximately band-limited to a frequency less than the Nyquist frequency of the sampling, then the frequency response of the discrete-time system will be approximately equal to it for frequencies below the Nyquist frequency.\n\nDiscussion\nThe continuous-time system's impulse response, , is sampled with sampling period to produce the discrete-time system's impulse response, .\n\nThus, the frequency responses of the two systems are related by\n\nIf the continuous time filter is approximately band-limited (i.e. when ), then the frequency response of the discrete-time system will be approximately the continuous-time system's frequency response for frequencies below π radians per sample (below the Nyquist frequency 1/(2T) Hz):\n\n for\n\nComparison to the bilinear transform\n\nNote that aliasing will occur, including aliasing below the Nyquist frequency to the extent that the continuous-time filter's response is nonzero above that frequency. The bilinear transform is an alternative to impulse invariance that uses a different mapping that maps the continuous-time system's frequency response, out to infinite frequency, into the range of frequencies up to the Nyquist frequency in the discrete-time case, as opposed to mapping frequencies linearly with circular overlap as impulse invariance does.\n\nEffect on poles in system function\nIf the continuous poles at , the system function can be written in partial fraction expansion as\n\nThus, using the inverse Laplace transform, the impulse response is\n\nThe corresponding discrete-time system's impulse response is then defined as the following\n\nPerforming a z-transform on the discrete-time impulse response produces the following discrete-time system function\n\nThus the poles from the continuous-time system function are translated to poles at z = eskT. The zeros, if any, are not so simply mapped.\n\nPoles and zeros\nIf the system function has zeros as well as poles, they can be mapped the same way, but the result is no longer an impulse invariance result: the discrete-time impulse response is not equal simply to samples of the continuous-time impulse response. This method is known as the matched Z-transform method, or pole–zero mapping.\n\nStability and causality\nSince poles in the continuous-time system at s = sk transform to poles in the discrete-time system at z = exp(skT), poles in the left half of the s-plane map to inside the unit circle in the z-plane; so if the continuous-time filter is causal and stable, then the discrete-time filter will be causal and stable as well.\n\nCorrected formula\nWhen a causal continuous-time impulse response has a discontinuity at , the expressions above are not consistent.\nThis is because has different right and left limits, and should really only contribute their average, half its right value , to .\n\nMaking this correction gives\n\nPerforming a z-transform on the discrete-time impulse response produces the following discrete-time system function\n\nThe second sum is zero for filters without a discontinuity, which is why ignoring it is often safe.\n\nSee also\n\n Bilinear transform\n Matched Z-transform method\n\nReferences\n\nOther sources\n\n Oppenheim, Alan V. and Schafer, Ronald W. with Buck, John R. Discrete-Time Signal Processing. Second Edition. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1999.\n Sahai, Anant. Course Lecture. Electrical Engineering 123: Digital Signal Processing. University of California, Berkeley. 5 April 2007.\n Eitelberg, Ed. \"Convolution Invariance and Corrected Impulse Invariance.\" Signal Processing, Vol. 86, Issue 5, pp. 1116–1120. 2006\n\nExternal links\n Impulse Invariant Transform at CircuitDesign.info Brief explanation, an example, and application to Continuous Time Sigma Delta ADC's.\n\nDigital signal processing\nFilter theory"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | Who is more likely to experience it, males or females? | 5 | Who is more likely to experience pleasurable experiences with sex organs before the age of six, males or females? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"The Gender Empathy Gap is the claim that people are likely to feel more empathy for one gender than another gender in a similar situation. Many studies show that females have a higher score of empathy than males, but no significant difference in cognitive empathy, which mostly used self-report measurement.\n\nEmpathy in Different Genders \nAccording to some studies, females can recognize facial expressions and emotions more accurately and faster than males, especially some neutral body language. Additionally, females can recognize males’ angry emotions better than males; males can recognize females’ happy emotions better than females. However, some research shows that there is no difference between males and females on empathy. Researchers explain that females’ performance of recognizing emotion is driven by motivation. In other words, if females feel the work requires them to perform higher score empathy, they would perform better, or they will perform no differenty than males.\n\nFrom birth, female and male neonates react to emotional stimulations differently. Experiments found that female neonates are more likely to cry when they heard others crying. Besides, they also have more eye contact with people than male neonates. Scientists believe that those reactions of female neonates may give them more chances to feel others feeling, which may amount over the years to a sufficient difference that can explain some of the empathy scores gap of males and females.\n\nGender Empathy Gap and Sexism\n\nSexism against females \nAccording to the research, both males and females have a better attitude toward females than males and provide female positive traits, which is called the “women are wonderful” effect. However, the truth behind it is about sexism. Females are expected to behave nurturing, helpful, and warm as a domestic role, but males are expected to perform independent, ambitious, and competitive as a high-status role.\n\nSexism against males \nSome studies suggest that people are more likely to put females in the position of being protected, but put the male in a protector role, which could be interpreted that males’ mental health is not taken as seriously as females' mental health.\n\nReferences \n\nSexism\nGender equality",
"Sexual selection in spiders shows how sexual selection explains the evolution of phenotypic traits in spiders. Male spiders have many complex courtship rituals and have to avoid being eaten by the females, with the males of most species survive a few matings, and having short life spans.\n\nPre-copulatory mate choice processes have been observed in a wide range of spider species, including Stegodyphus lineatus, Argiope aurantia, Schizocosa floridana, Hygrolycosa rubrofasciata, and Schizocosa stridulans.\n\nSexual selection occurs after copulation as well as before copulation. Post-copulatory sexual selection involves sperm competition and cryptic female choice. Sperm competition occurs when the sperm of more than one male competes to fertilize the egg of the female. Cryptic female choice involves the expelling of a males sperm during or after copulations.\n\nMale to male competition\n\nSize is a factor in the reproductive success of males with species such as Stegodyphus lineatus, Argiope aurantia and Argyroneta aquatica showing sexual dimorphism, beneficial for larger males, stronger and more aggressive, who fight off the smaller ones using their large chelicerae and forelegs. This leads to a decrease in the paternal success for smaller males since they are unable to gain access to females. In Argiope aurantia males can lose legs in combat, with the loss more prevalent in smaller males, evidence that larger males are favored in male-to-male competition. In the water spider Argyroneta aquatica, where males and females permanently live in the water the males are larger, indicating sexual selective pressures for large body size. The large male water spiders are more mobile, helping them obtain more females.\n\nSexual selection provides benefits to smaller male spiders under certain conditions, such as Misumena vatia and Nephila clavipes, whose smaller males climb faster to reach their mates: Explained by the gravity hypothesis, outcompeting larger males thus having more reproductive success, especially when females live in high patches of flowers, whereas females live in low lying areas, larger males are favored.\n\nIn spiders like Tetragnathidae, Araneidae, Thomisidae and Pholicidae there is an optimal body size that favors climbing speed. Smaller males will have an advantage over the largest males of the species, however the smallest male will not be the fastest climber. This optimal body size for climbing is observed in different males from the same species express phenotypes, weapons such as chelicerae, teeth or even legs to fight off competition are used to fight off oncoming rivals, with larger bodied spiders contained larger chelicerae. In most cases body size correlated with mating success. This is observed in Lysommanes viridis, whose males display weapons that are very pronounced in comparison with females and selected to help males fight off competition.\n\nThe time it takes to develop is crucial to the overall fitness of a spider. This idea is true, however does not mean that larger males will always have better fitness. In Latrodectus hasselti, larger males outcompete smaller males by getting to the females web first. However, these large male spiders have long development times, meaning that the larger male will need more time before being able to copulate. Smaller males tend to have a quick development time which gives them an advantage in mating with a female. This advantage correlates with high paternal success in the species Latrodectus hasselti. Larger males are able to outcompete smaller males, but not able to mate. Smaller males risk getting outcompeted, but are more likely to have paternal success.\n\nSperm competition\n\nSperm competition occurs in many species, such as Unicorn catleyi, Nephila Pilipes and Argiope aurantia, with males acting to limit it by guarding the female or inserting parts of the male genitalia into the females reproductive organs, or using mating plugs which come from the males seminal fluid. This process is observed in the species Unicorn catleyi, for example. In this species, males plug a females insemination duct with a portion of their palp that contains the ejaculatory duct called the embolus. The embolus that is found in the female's posterior receptaculum suggests that males are trying to limit sperm competition.\n\nIn some spider species, such as the Nephila pilipes, multiple males try to mate with only one female. This can be harmful to the female, because it forces her to participate in energy costly matings. In response to this polyandry, the female produces mating plugs of her own to prevent too many males from copulating with her.\n\nThe mating plugs transferred to females by the males are believed to be a possible cause of monogyny. For example, in the spider species Argiope aurantia, males will sometimes plug a female with both pedipalps to prevent sperm competition. When this occurs, the male loses his ability to mate with more than one female.\n\nMate choice\n\nMate choice is typically displayed by females, but males can be choosy as well. Traits associated with winning competitive bouts are more likely to be chosen by females. As body size effects male-to-male competition, females will choose the male with the more efficient body size. A Wolf spider, Schizocosa floridana, females assess males based on their ability to cope with a changing environment, observing the way males adapt to differences in food availabilities at different times. Males who are able to adapt to the changes in food availability are well conditioned and usually show courtship displays such as tapping on their forelegs and waving. females choose the males who express these courtship displays and are larger in size based on predictions of the males foraging past.\n\nCourtship displays, such as degrees of ornamentation, colors, and movements, are commonly expressed in individuals of a species to attract the opposite sex. The male Hygrolycosa rubrofasciata spider displays certain signals, known as drumming, where a male taps his legs on a rough surface such as a leaf to signal he is ready to mate, with its speed influencing female choice towards faster drummers. Once the females chooses the male, her body starts to shake, a signal that she is ready to mate too. Males who exhibit better drumming behavior typically are more viable.\n\nSchizocosa stridulans males have ornamentation traits in their forelegs which affect their mating success. When courtship rates are high, ornamentation does not increase the reproductive rates of males because of the correlation between the aggressiveness of a spider and the degrees of ornamentation. Due to this correlation it is hypothesized that females choose males without ornamentation to avoid aggression from the males. Females are able to be choosy when courtship rates are high because they do not have to worry about missing out on copulations if there are plenty of male spiders to mate with. When courtship rates are low, males with high degrees of ornamentation are able to get to the female more quickly, thus giving them an advantage over non ornamented males.\n\nSometimes facial color or leg brightness can play a role in mate choice. In several species of jumping spiders, including Habronattus pyrrithrix, and Cosmophasis umbratica, males show different brightness and color of body parts prior to copulation. These colors can be used to the males advantage in attracting a mate. In the species Habronattus pyrrithrix, the males who have faces that are red and non bright green legs are more likely to attract a mate than males who do not, indicating that females prefer males with those particular traits.\n\nAlthough females from the species, Hygrolycosa rubrofasciata, Schizocosa floridana and Schizocosa stridulans tend to be the choosier sex, it is not uncommon to observe males from different spider species such as the Zygiella x-notata and Latrodectus hesperus, to be choosy as well. In the orb weaving spider Zygiella x-notata, reproduction rates are affected by male choice under different conditions. These external conditions depend on the amount of competition between males of the species. When competition rates are low, males mate opportunistically with as many females as possible. When competition between males is high, larger males choose to mate with a large female as opposed to the smaller males who choose to mate with any female. The belief is that the advantages of larger size in competition, will give the larger males an opportunity to increase their paternal success by allowing them to be more selective of females.\n\nSometimes males choose females who are large and better conditioned to avoid being eaten. Choosing a malnourished female can result in a male being cannibalized before copulation. Cannibalism by females is often expressed as a way for females to get nutrition from their mates after copulation. This cannibalistic behavior by females makes males more selective with whom to mate with. The males from the species Latrodectus hesperus show high mate preference for better conditioned females. By choosing well nourished females, males are able to increase their mating success while limiting their chance of being consumed. This is because well nourished females are less likely to eat their mates than mal-nourished females.\n\nCryptic female choice\nCryptic female choice is a post-copulatory process of mate choice. This process is observed in numerous spider species such as, Physocyclus globosus and Argiope bruennichi. For example in the Argiope bruennichi species, males produce energetic courtship displays prior to copulation. Regardless of the displays, females are observed to mate with multiple males. Once copulation is over the offspring of the female is more likely to have the courtship display phenotype than not. The females of this species must be cryptically discarding sperm from the non courtship males while keeping the other males sperm for copulation. This allows females to mate with as many males as she wants prior to copulation, while being more choosy of males after copulation. Discarding the sperm of a male who does not perform courtship displays indicates that females feel that males who perform courtship displays have the greatest fitness.\n\nReferences\n\nspiders, Sexual selection in"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | Are all children able to experience pleasure? | 6 | Are all children able to experience sexual pleasure? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"Pleasure refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. It contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. It is closely related to value, desire and action: humans and other conscious animals find pleasure enjoyable, positive or worthy of seeking. A great variety of activities are experienced as pleasurable, like eating, having sex, listening to music or playing games. Pleasure is part of various other mental states such as ecstasy, euphoria and flow. Happiness and well-being are closely related to pleasure but not identical with it. There is no general agreement as to whether pleasure should be understood as a sensation, a quality of experiences, an attitude to experiences or otherwise. Pleasure plays a central role in the family of philosophical theories known as hedonism.\n\nOverview \n\"Pleasure\" refers to experience that feels good, that involves the enjoyment of something. The term is primarily used in association with sensory pleasures like the enjoyment of food or sex. But in its most general sense, it includes all types of positive or pleasant experiences including the enjoyment of sports, seeing a beautiful sunset or engaging in an intellectually satisfying activity. Pleasure contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. Both pleasure and pain come in degrees and have been thought of as a dimension going from positive degrees through a neutral point to negative degrees. This assumption is important for the possibility of comparing and aggregating the degrees of pleasure of different experiences, for example, in order to perform the Utilitarian calculus.\n\nThe concept of pleasure is similar but not identical to the concepts of well-being and of happiness. These terms are used in overlapping ways, but their meanings tend to come apart in technical contexts like philosophy or psychology. Pleasure refers to a certain type of experience while well-being is about what is good for a person. Many philosophers agree that pleasure is good for a person and therefore is a form of well-being. But there may be other things besides or instead of pleasure that constitute well-being, like health, virtue, knowledge or the fulfillment of desires. On some conceptions, happiness is identified with \"the individual’s balance of pleasant over unpleasant experience\". Life satisfaction theories, on the other hand, hold that happiness involves having the right attitude towards one's life as a whole. Pleasure may have a role to play in this attitude, but it is not identical to happiness.\n\nPleasure is closely related to value, desire, motivation and right action. There is broad agreement that pleasure is valuable in some sense. Axiological hedonists hold that pleasure is the only thing that has intrinsic value. Many desires are concerned with pleasure. Psychological hedonism is the thesis that all our actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain. Freud's pleasure principle ties pleasure to motivation and action by holding that there is a strong psychological tendency to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. Classical utilitarianism connects pleasure to ethics in stating that whether an action is right depends on the pleasure it produces: it should maximize the sum-total of pleasure.\n\nSources and types of pleasure\nMany pleasurable experiences are associated with satisfying basic biological drives, such as eating, exercise, hygiene, sleep, and sex. The appreciation of cultural artifacts and activities such as art, music, dancing, and literature is often pleasurable. Pleasure is sometimes subdivided into fundamental pleasures that are closely related to survival (food, sex, and social belonging) and higher-order pleasures (e.g., viewing art and altruism). Bentham listed 14 kinds of pleasure; sense, wealth, skill, amity, a good name, power, piety, benevolence, malevolence, memory, imagination, expectation, pleasures dependent on association, and the pleasures of relief. Some commentators see 'complex pleasures' including wit and sudden realisation, and some see a wide range of pleasurable feelings.\n\nTheories of pleasure \nPleasure comes in various forms, for example, in the enjoyment of food, sex, sports, seeing a beautiful sunset or engaging in an intellectually satisfying activity. Theories of pleasure try to determine what all these pleasurable experiences have in common, what is essential to them. They are traditionally divided into quality theories and attitude theories. An alternative terminology refers to these theories as phenomenalism and intentionalism. Quality theories hold that pleasure is a quality of pleasurable experiences themselves while attitude theories state that pleasure is in some sense external to the experience since it depends on the subject's attitude to the experience. More recently, dispositional theories have been proposed that incorporate elements of both traditional approaches.\n\nQuality theories \nIn everyday language, the term \"pleasure\" is primarily associated with sensory pleasures like the enjoyment of food or sex. One traditionally important quality-theory closely follows this association by holding that pleasure is a sensation. On the simplest version of the sensation theory, whenever we experience pleasure there is a distinctive pleasure-sensation present. So a pleasurable experience of eating chocolate involves a sensation of the taste of chocolate together with a pleasure-sensation. An obvious shortcoming of this theory is that many impressions may be present at the same time. For example, there may be an itching sensation as well while eating the chocolate. But this account cannot explain why the enjoyment is linked to the taste of the chocolate and not to the itch. Another problem is due to the fact that sensations are usually thought of as localized somewhere in the body. But considering the pleasure of seeing a beautiful sunset, there seems to be no specific region in the body at which we experience this pleasure.\n\nThese problems can be avoided by felt-quality-theories, which see pleasure not as a sensation but as an aspect qualifying sensations or other mental phenomena. As an aspect, pleasure is dependent on the mental phenomenon it qualifies, it cannot be present on its own. Since the link to the enjoyed phenomenon is already built into the pleasure, it solves the problem faced by sensation theories to explain how this link comes about. It also captures the intuition that pleasure is usually pleasure of something: enjoyment of drinking a milkshake or of playing chess but not just pure or object-less enjoyment. According to this approach, pleasurable experiences differ in content (drinking a milkshake, playing chess) but agree in feeling or hedonic tone. Pleasure can be localized, but only to the extent that the impression it qualifies is localized.\n\nOne objection to both the sensation theory and the felt-quality theory is that there is no one quality shared by all pleasure-experiences. The force of this objection comes from the intuition that the variety of pleasure-experiences is just too wide to point out one quality shared by all, for example, the quality shared by enjoying a milkshake and enjoying a chess game. One way for quality theorists to respond to this objection is by pointing out that the hedonic tone of pleasure-experiences is not a regular quality but a higher-order quality. As an analogy, a vividly green thing and a vividly red thing do not share a regular color property but they share \"vividness\" as a higher-order property.\n\nAttitude theories \nAttitude theories propose to analyze pleasure in terms of attitudes to experiences. So to enjoy the taste of chocolate it is not sufficient to have the corresponding experience of the taste. Instead, the subject has to have the right attitude to this taste for pleasure to arise. This approach captures the intuition that a second person may have exactly the same taste-experience but not enjoy it since the relevant attitude is lacking. Various attitudes have been proposed for the type of attitude responsible for pleasure, but historically the most influential version assigns this role to desires. On this account, pleasure is linked to experiences that fulfill a desire had by the experiencer. So the difference between the first and the second person in the example above is that only the first person has a corresponding desire directed at the taste of chocolate.\n\nOne important argument against this version is that while it is often the case that we desire something first and then enjoy it, this cannot always be the case. In fact, often the opposite seems to be true: we have to learn first that something is enjoyable before we start to desire it. This objection can be partially avoided by holding that it does not matter whether the desire was there before the experience but that it only matters what we desire while the experience is happening. This variant, originally held by Henry Sidgwick, has recently been defended by Chris Heathwood, who holds that an experience is pleasurable if the subject of the experience wants the experience to occur for its own sake while it is occurring. But this version faces a related problem akin to the Euthyphro dilemma: it seems that we usually desire things because they are enjoyable, not the other way round. So desire theories would be mistaken about the direction of explanation. Another argument against desire theories is that desire and pleasure can come apart: we can have a desire for things that are not enjoyable and we can enjoy things without desiring to do so.\n\nDispositional theories \nDispositional theories try to account for pleasure in terms of dispositions, often by including insights from both the quality theories and the attitude theories. One way to combine these elements is to hold that pleasure consists in being disposed to desire an experience in virtue of the qualities of this experience. Some of the problems of the regular desire theory can be avoided this way since the disposition does not need to be realized for there to be pleasure, thereby taking into account that desire and pleasure can come apart.\n\nPhilosophy\n\nPleasure plays a central role in theories from various areas of philosophy. Such theories are usually grouped together under the label \"hedonism\".\n\nEthics \nPleasure is related not just to how we actually act, but also to how we ought to act, which belongs to the field of ethics. Ethical hedonism takes the strongest position on this relation in stating that considerations of increasing pleasure and decreasing pain fully determine what we should do or which action is right. Ethical hedonist theories can be classified in relation to whose pleasure should be increased. According to the egoist version, each agent should only aim at maximizing her own pleasure. This position is usually not held in very high esteem. Utilitarianism, on the other hand, is a family of altruist theories that are more respectable in the philosophical community. Within this family, classical utilitarianism draws the closest connection between pleasure and right action by holding that the agent should maximize the sum-total of everyone's happiness. This sum-total includes the agent's pleasure as well, but only as one factor among many.\n\nValue \nPleasure is intimately connected to value as something that is desirable and worth seeking. According to axiological hedonism, it is the only thing that has intrinsic value or is good in itself. This position entails that things other than pleasure, like knowledge, virtue or money, only have instrumental value: they are valuable because or to the extent that they produce pleasure but lack value otherwise. Within the scope of axiological hedonism, there are two competing theories about the exact relation between pleasure and value: quantitative hedonism and qualitative hedonism. Quantitative hedonists, following Jeremy Bentham, hold that the specific content or quality of a pleasure-experience is not relevant to its value, which only depends on its quantitative features: intensity and duration. On this account, an experience of intense pleasure of indulging in food and sex is worth more than an experience of subtle pleasure of looking at fine art or of engaging in a stimulating intellectual conversation. Qualitative hedonists, following John Stuart Mill, object to this version on the grounds that it threatens to turn axiological hedonism into a \"philosophy of swine\". Instead, they argue that the quality is another factor relevant to the value of a pleasure-experience, for example, that the lower pleasures of the body are less valuable than the higher pleasures of the mind.\n\nBeauty \nA very common element in many conceptions of beauty is its relation to pleasure. Aesthetic hedonism makes this relation part of the definition of beauty by holding that there is a necessary connection between pleasure and beauty, e.g. that for an object to be beautiful is for it to cause pleasure or that the experience of beauty is always accompanied by pleasure. The pleasure due to beauty does not need to be pure, i.e. exclude all unpleasant elements. Instead, beauty can involve mixed pleasure, for example, in the case of a beautifully tragic story. We take pleasure from many things that are not beautiful, which is why beauty is usually defined in terms of a special type of pleasure: aesthetic or disinterested pleasure. A pleasure is disinterested if it is indifferent to the existence of the beautiful object. For example, the joy of looking at a beautiful landscape would still be valuable if it turned out that this experience was an illusion, which would not be true if this joy was due to seeing the landscape as a valuable real estate opportunity. Opponents of aesthetic hedonism have pointed out that despite commonly occurring together, there are cases of beauty without pleasure. For example, a cold jaded critic may still be a good judge of beauty due to her years of experience but lack the joy that initially accompanied her work. A further question for hedonists is how to explain the relation between beauty and pleasure. This problem is akin to the Euthyphro dilemma: is something beautiful because we enjoy it or do we enjoy it because it is beautiful? Identity theorists solve this problem by denying that there is a difference between beauty and pleasure: they identify beauty, or the appearance of it, with the experience of aesthetic pleasure.\n\nHistory\n\nHellenistic philosophy\nThe ancient Cyrenaics posited pleasure as the universal aim for all people. Later, Epicurus defined the highest pleasure as aponia (the absence of pain), and pleasure as \"freedom from pain in the body and freedom from turmoil in the soul\". According to Cicero (or rather his character Torquatus) Epicurus also believed that pleasure was the chief good and pain the chief evil. The Pyrrhonist philosopher Aenesidemus claimed that following Pyrrhonism's prescriptions for philosophical skepticism produced pleasure.\n\nMedieval philosophy\nIn the 12th century, Razi's \"Treatise of the Self and the Spirit\" (Kitab al Nafs Wa’l Ruh) analyzed different types of pleasure- sensuous and intellectual, and explained their relations with one another. He concludes that human needs and desires are endless, and \"their satisfaction is by definition impossible.\"\n\nSchopenhauer\nThe 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer understood pleasure as a negative sensation, one that negates the usual existential condition of suffering.\n\nPsychology \nPleasure is often regarded as a bipolar construct, meaning that the two ends of the spectrum from pleasure to suffering are mutually exclusive. That is part of the circumplex model of affect. Yet, some lines of research suggest that people do experience pleasure and suffering at the same time, giving rise to so-called mixed feelings. Pleasure is considered one of the core dimensions of emotion. It can be described as the positive evaluation that forms the basis for several more elaborate evaluations such as \"agreeable\" or \"nice\". As such, pleasure is an affect and not an emotion, as it forms one component of several different emotions. The clinical condition of being unable to experience pleasure from usually enjoyable activities is called anhedonia. An active aversion to obtaining pleasure is called hedonophobia.\n\nPleasure and belief\nThe degree to which something or someone is experienced as pleasurable not only depends on its objective attributes (appearance, sound, taste, texture, etc.), but on beliefs about its history, about the circumstances of its creation, about its rarity, fame, or price, and on other non-intrinsic attributes, such as the social status or identity it conveys. For example, a sweater that has been worn by a celebrity is more desired than an otherwise identical sweater that has not, though considerably less so if it has been washed.\n\nMotivation and behavior \nPleasure-seeking behavior is a common phenomenon and may indeed dominate our conduct at times. The thesis of psychological hedonism generalizes this insight by holding that all our actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain. This is usually understood in combination with egoism, i.e. that each person only aims at her own happiness. Our actions rely on beliefs about what causes pleasure. False beliefs may mislead us and thus our actions may fail to result in pleasure, but even failed actions are motivated by considerations of pleasure, according to psychological hedonism. The paradox of hedonism states that pleasure-seeking behavior commonly fails also in another way. It asserts that being motivated by pleasure is self-defeating in the sense that it leads to less actual pleasure than following other motives.\n\nSigmund Freud formulated his pleasure principle in order to account for the effect pleasure has on our behavior. It states that there is a strong, inborn tendency of our mental life to seek immediate gratification whenever an opportunity presents itself. This tendency is opposed by the reality principle, which constitutes a learned capacity to delay immediate gratification in order to take the real consequences of our actions into account. Freud also described the pleasure principle as a positive feedback mechanism that motivates the organism to recreate the situation it has just found pleasurable, and to avoid past situations that caused pain.\n\nCognitive biases \nA cognitive bias is a systematic tendency of thinking and judging in a way that deviates from a normative criterion, especially from the demands of rationality. Cognitive biases in regard to pleasure include the peak–end rule, the focusing illusion, the nearness bias and the future bias.\n\nThe peak–end rule affects how we remember the pleasantness or unpleasantness of experiences. It states that our overall impression of past events is determined for the most part not by the total pleasure and suffering it contained but by how it felt at its peaks and at its end. For example, the memory of a painful colonoscopy is improved if the examination is extended by three minutes in which the scope is still inside but not moved anymore, resulting in a moderately uncomfortable sensation. This extended colonoscopy, despite involving more pain overall, is remembered less negatively due to the reduced pain at the end. This even increases the likelihood for the patient to return for subsequent procedures. Daniel Kahneman explains this distortion in terms of the difference between two selves: the experiencing self, which is aware of pleasure and pain as they are happening, and the remembering self, which shows the aggregate pleasure and pain over an extended period of time. The distortions due to the peak–end rule happen on the level of the remembering self. Our tendency to rely on the remembering self can often lead us to pursue courses of action that are not in our best self-interest.\n\nA closely related bias is the focusing illusion. The \"illusion\" occurs when people consider the impact of one specific factor on their overall happiness. They tend to greatly exaggerate the importance of that factor, while overlooking the numerous other factors that would in most cases have a greater impact.\n\nThe nearness bias and the future bias are two different forms of violating the principle of temporal neutrality. This principle states that the temporal location of a benefit or a harm is not important for its normative significance: a rational agent should care to the same extent about all parts of their life. The nearness bias, also discussed under the labels \"present bias\" or \"temporal discounting\", refers to our tendency to violate temporal neutrality in regards to temporal distance from the present. On the positive side, we prefer pleasurable experiences to be near rather than distant. On the negative side, we prefer painful experiences to be distant rather than near. The future bias refers to our tendency to violate temporal neutrality in regards to the direction of time. On the positive side, we prefer pleasurable experiences to be in the future rather than in the past. On the negative side, we prefer painful experiences to be in the past rather than in the future.\n\nBrain and reward system\n\nPleasure centers\n\nReward system and motivation\nWhile all pleasurable stimuli can be seen as rewards, some rewards do not evoke pleasure. Based upon the incentive salience model of reward – the attractive and motivational property of a stimulus that induces approach behavior and consummatory behavior – an intrinsic reward has two components: a \"wanting\" or desire component that is reflected in approach behavior, and a \"liking\" or pleasure component that is reflected in consummatory behavior. Some research indicates that similar mesocorticolimbic circuitry is activated by quite diverse pleasures, suggesting a common neural currency. Some commentators opine that our current understanding of how pleasure happens within us remains poor, but that scientific advance gives optimism for future progress.\n\nAnimal pleasure\n\nIn the past, there has been debate as to whether pleasure is experienced by other animals rather than being an exclusive property of humankind; however, it is now known that animals do experience pleasure, as measured by objective behavioral and neural hedonic responses to pleasurable stimuli.\n\nSee also\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n Draws on neuroscience, philosophy, child-development research, and behavioral economics in a study of our desires, attractions, and tastes.\n M.L. Kringelbach. The pleasure center: Trust Your Animal Instincts (2009). Oxford University Press. . A general overview of the neuroscience of pleasure.\n\nExternal links \n\n \n \n \n\n \nEmotions\nFeeling",
"Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. Psychological or motivational hedonism claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decrease pain. Normative or ethical hedonism, on the other hand, is not about how we actually act but how we ought to act: we should pursue pleasure and avoid pain. Axiological hedonism, which is sometimes treated as a part of ethical hedonism, is the thesis that only pleasure has intrinsic value. Applied to well-being or what is good for someone, it is the thesis that pleasure and suffering are the only components of well-being. These technical definitions of hedonism within philosophy, which are usually seen as respectable schools of thought, have to be distinguished from how the term is used in everyday language, sometimes referred to as \"folk hedonism\". In this sense, it has a negative connotation, linked to the egoistic pursuit of short-term gratification by indulging in sensory pleasures without regard for the consequences.\n\nThe nature of pleasure \n\nPleasure plays a central role in all forms of hedonism; it refers to experience that feels good and involves the enjoyment of something. Pleasure contrasts with pain or suffering, which are forms of feeling bad. Discussions within hedonism usually focus more on pleasure, but as its negative side, pain is equally implied in these discussions. Both pleasure and pain come in degrees and have been thought of as a dimension going from positive degrees through a neutral point to negative degrees. The term \"happiness\" is often used in this tradition to refer to the balance of pleasure over pain.\n\nIn everyday language, the term \"pleasure\" is primarily associated with sensory pleasures like the enjoyment of food or sex. But in its most general sense, it includes all types of positive or pleasant experiences including the enjoyment of sports, seeing a beautiful sunset or engaging in an intellectually satisfying activity. Theories of pleasure try to determine what all these pleasurable experiences have in common, what is essential to them. They are traditionally divided into quality theories and attitude theories. Quality theories hold that pleasure is a quality of pleasurable experiences themselves while attitude theories state that pleasure is in some sense external to the experience since it depends on the subject's attitude to the experience.\n\nThe plausibility of the various versions of hedonism is affected by how the nature of pleasure is conceived. An important appeal of most forms of hedonism is that they are able to give a simple and unified account of their respective fields. But this is only possible if pleasure itself is a unified phenomenon. This has been put into question, mainly due to the wide variety of pleasure experiences which seem to have no one shared feature in common. One way open to quality theorists to respond to this objection is by pointing out that the hedonic tone of pleasure-experiences is not a regular quality but a higher-order quality. Attitude theories have an easier way to reply to this argument since they may hold that it is the same type of attitude, often identified with desire, that is common to all pleasurable experiences.\n\nPsychological hedonism \nPsychological hedonism, also known as motivational hedonism, is an empirical theory about what motivates us: it states that all our actions aim at increasing pleasure and avoiding pain. This is usually understood in combination with egoism, i.e. that each person only aims at their own happiness. Our actions rely on beliefs about what causes pleasure. False beliefs may mislead us and thus our actions may fail to result in pleasure, but even failed actions are motivated by considerations of pleasure, according to psychological hedonism. The paradox of hedonism concerns the thesis that pleasure-seeking behavior is actually self-defeating in the sense that it results in less actual pleasure than would result from following other motives.\n\nPsychological hedonism gives a straightforward theory explaining the totality of human behavior. It has intuitive plausibility because pleasure-seeking behavior is a common phenomenon, and may indeed dominate human conduct at times; however, the generalization of psychological hedonism as an explanation for all behavior is highly controversial. Critics point to counterexamples involving actions that seem to have no plausible explanation in terms of pleasure, such as egoistic motives for things other than pleasure (e.g. health, self-improvement, post-mortem fame), and altruistic motives (e.g. pursuing one's child's happiness, sacrificing one's life for a greater cause). Psychological hedonists reinterpret such cases in terms of pleasure-seeking behavior, for example positing that seeing one's children happy or knowing that one's death will have been meaningful brings pleasure to the person sacrificing their immediate pleasure.\n\nCritics also contend that, via introspection, one can conclude that pursuit of pleasure is only one type of motivating force among others, and that reinterpreting every case in terms of pleasure/pain contradicts this. Critics also contend that psychological hedonism's basic claim of what motivates humans falls within the realm of the science of psychology rather than philosophy, and as such demands experimental evidence to confirm or contradict it.\n\nEthical hedonism \nEthical hedonism or normative hedonism, as defined here, is the thesis that considerations of increasing pleasure and decreasing pain determine what we should do or which action is right. However, it is sometimes defined in a wider sense in terms of intrinsic value, in which case it includes axiological hedonism as defined below. It is different from psychological hedonism since it prescribes rather than describes our behavior. In the narrow sense, ethical hedonism is a form of consequentialism since it determines the rightness of an action based on its consequences, which are measured here in terms of pleasure and pain. As such, it is subject to the main arguments in favor and against consequentialism. On the positive side, these include the intuition that the consequences of our actions matter and that through them we ought to make the world a better place. On the negative side, consequentialism would entail that we rarely if ever know right from wrong since our knowledge of the future is rather limited and the consequences of even simple actions may be vast. As a form of hedonism, it has some initial intuitive appeal since pleasure and pain seem to be relevant to how we should act. But it has been argued that it is morally objectable to see pleasure and pain as the only factors relevant to what we should do since this position seems to ignore, for example, values of justice, friendship and truth. Ethical hedonism is usually concerned with both pleasure and pain. But the more restricted version in the form of negative consequentialism or negative utilitarianism focuses only on reducing suffering. Ethical hedonism is said to have been started by Aristippus of Cyrene, who held the idea that pleasure is the highest good.\n\nEthical hedonist theories can be classified in relation to whose pleasure should be increased. According to the egoist version, each agent should only aim at maximizing her own pleasure. This position is usually not held in very high esteem. Altruist theories, commonly known by the term \"classical utilitarianism\", are more respectable in the philosophical community. They hold that the agent should maximize the sum-total of everyone's happiness. This sum-total includes the agent's pleasure as well, but only as one factor among many. A common objection against utilitarianism is that it is too demanding. This is most pronounced in cases where the agent has to sacrifice his own happiness in order to promote someone else's happiness. For example, various commentators have directed this argument against Peter Singer's position, who suggests along similar lines that the right thing to do for most people living in developed countries would be to donate a significant portion of their income to charities, which appears overly demanding to many. Singer justifies his position by pointing out that the suffering that can be avoided in third world countries this way considerably outweighs the pleasure gained from how the money would be spent otherwise. Another important objection to utilitarianism is that it disregards the personal nature of moral duties, for example, that it may be more important to promote the happiness of those close to us, e.g. of our family and friends, even if the alternative course of actions would result in slightly more happiness for a stranger.\n\nAxiological hedonism \nAxiological hedonism is the thesis that only pleasure has intrinsic value. It has also been referred to as evaluative hedonism or value hedonism, and it is sometimes included in ethical hedonism. A closely related theory often treated together with axiological hedonism is hedonism about well-being, which holds that pleasure and pain are the only constituents of well-being and thereby the only things that are good for someone. Central to the understanding of axiological hedonism is the distinction between intrinsic and instrumental value. An entity has intrinsic value if it is good in itself or good for its own sake. Instrumental value, on the other hand, is ascribed to things that are valuable only as a means to something else. For example, tools like cars or microwaves are said to be instrumentally valuable in virtue of the function they perform, while the happiness they cause is intrinsically valuable. Axiological hedonism is a claim about intrinsic value, not about value at large.\n\nWithin the scope of axiological hedonism, there are two competing theories about the exact relation between pleasure and value: quantitative hedonism and qualitative hedonism. Quantitative hedonists, following Jeremy Bentham, hold that the specific content or quality of a pleasure-experience is not relevant to its value, which only depends on its quantitative features: intensity and duration. For example, on this account, an experience of intense pleasure of indulging in food and sex is worth more than an experience of subtle pleasure of looking at fine art or of engaging in a stimulating intellectual conversation. Qualitative hedonists, following John Stuart Mill, object to this version on the grounds that it threatens to turn axiological hedonism into a \"philosophy of swine\". Instead, they argue that the quality is another factor relevant to the value of a pleasure-experience, for example, that the lower pleasures of the body are less valuable than the higher pleasures of the mind.\n\nOne appeal of axiological hedonism is that it provides a simple and unified account of what matters. It also reflects the introspective insight that pleasure feels valuable as something worth seeking. It has been influential throughout the history of western philosophy but has received a lot of criticism in contemporary philosophy. Most objections can roughly be divided into 2 types: (1) objections to the claim that pleasure is a sufficient condition of intrinsic value or that all pleasure is intrinsically valuable; (2) objections to the claim that pleasure is a necessary condition of intrinsic value or that there are no intrinsically valuable things other than pleasure. Opponents in the first category usually try to point to cases of pleasure that seem to either lack value or have negative value, like sadistic pleasure or pleasure due to a false belief. Qualitative hedonists can try to account for these cases by devaluing pleasures associated with the problematic qualities. Other ways to respond to this argument include rejecting the claim that these pleasures really have no or negative intrinsic value or rejecting that these cases involve pleasure at all.\n\nVarious thought experiments have been proposed for the second category, i.e. that there are intrinsically valuable things other than pleasure. The most well-known one in recent philosophy is Robert Nozick's experience machine. Nozick asks us whether we would agree to be permanently transported into a simulated reality more pleasurable than actual life. He thinks that it is rational to decline this offer since other things besides pleasure matter. This has to do with the fact that it matters to be in touch with reality and to actually \"make a difference in the world\" instead of just appearing to do so since life would be meaningless otherwise. Axiological hedonists have responded to this thought experiment by pointing out that our intuitions about what we should do are mistaken, for example, that there is a cognitive bias to prefer the status quo and that if we were to find out that we had spent our life already within the experience machine, we would be likely to choose to stay within the machine. Another objection within this category is that many things besides pleasure seem valuable to us, like virtue, beauty, knowledge or justice. For example, G. E. Moore suggests in a famous thought experiment that a world consisting only of a beautiful landscape is better than an ugly and disgusting world even if there is no conscious being to observe and enjoy or suffer either world. One way for the axiological hedonist to respond is to explain the value of these things in terms of instrumental values. So, for example, virtue is good because it tends to increase the overall pleasure of the virtuous person or of the people around them. This can be paired with holding that there is a psychological bias to mistake stable instrumental values for intrinsic values, thus explaining the opponent's intuition. While this strategy may work for some cases, it is controversial whether it can be applied to all counterexamples.\n\nAesthetic hedonism \nAesthetic hedonism is the influential view in the field of aesthetics that beauty or aesthetic value can be defined in terms of pleasure, e.g. that for an object to be beautiful is for it to cause pleasure or that the experience of beauty is always accompanied by pleasure. A prominent articulation of this position comes from Thomas Aquinas, who treats beauty as \"that which pleases in the very apprehension of it\". Immanuel Kant explains this pleasure through a harmonious interplay between the faculties of understanding and imagination. A further question for aesthetic hedonists is how to explain the relation between beauty and pleasure. This problem is akin to the Euthyphro dilemma: is something beautiful because we enjoy it or do we enjoy it because it is beautiful? Identity theorists solve this problem by denying that there is a difference between beauty and pleasure: they identify beauty, or the appearance of it, with the experience of aesthetic pleasure.\n\nAesthetic hedonists usually restrict and specify the notion of pleasure in various ways in order to avoid obvious counterexamples. One important distinction in this context is the difference between pure and mixed pleasure. Pure pleasure excludes any form of pain or unpleasant feeling while the experience of mixed pleasure can include unpleasant elements. But beauty can involve mixed pleasure, for example, in the case of a beautifully tragic story, which is why mixed pleasure is usually allowed in aesthetic hedonist conceptions of beauty.\n\nAnother problem faced by aesthetic hedonist theories is that we take pleasure from many things that are not beautiful. One way to address this issue is to associate beauty with a special type of pleasure: aesthetic or disinterested pleasure. A pleasure is disinterested if it is indifferent to the existence of the beautiful object or if it did not arise due to an antecedent desire through means-end reasoning. For example, the joy of looking at a beautiful landscape would still be valuable if it turned out that this experience was an illusion, which would not be true if this joy was due to seeing the landscape as a valuable real estate opportunity. Opponents of hedonism usually concede that many experiences of beauty are pleasurable but deny that this is true for all cases. For example, a cold jaded critic may still be a good judge of beauty due to his years of experience but lack the joy that initially accompanied his work. One way to avoid this objection is to allow responses to beautiful things to lack pleasure while insisting that all beautiful things merit pleasure, that aesthetic pleasure is the only appropriate response to them.\n\nHistory\n\nEtymology\nThe term hedonism derives from the Greek hēdonismos (; from ), which is a cognate from Proto-Indo-European swéh₂dus through Ancient Greek \nhēdús () or hêdos () \n+ suffix -ismos (-ισμός, 'ism').\n\nOpposite to hedonism, there is hedonophobia, which is a strong aversion to experiencing pleasure. According to medical author William C. Shiel Jr., hedonophobia is \"an abnormal, excessive, and persistent fear of pleasure.\" The condition of being unable to experience pleasure is anhedonia.\n\nEarly philosophy\n\nSumerian civilization\nIn the original Old Babylonian version of the Epic of Gilgamesh, Siduri gave the following advice: \"Fill your belly. Day and night make merry. Let days be full of joy. Dance and make music day and night.... These things alone are the concern of men.\" This may represent the first recorded advocacy of a hedonistic philosophy.\n\nAncient Egypt\nScenes of a harper entertaining guests at a feast were common in Ancient-Egyptian tombs, and sometimes contained hedonistic elements, calling guests to submit to pleasure because they cannot be sure that they will be rewarded for good with a blissful afterlife. The following is a song attributed to the reign of one of the pharaohs around the time of the 12th dynasty, and the text was used in the 18th and 19th dynasties.\n\nAncient Greek philosophy\nDemocritus seems to be the earliest philosopher on record to have categorically embraced a hedonistic philosophy; he called the supreme goal of life \"contentment\" or \"cheerfulness,\" claiming that \"joy and sorrow are the distinguishing mark of things beneficial and harmful.\n\nCyrenaic school \n\nThe Cyrenaics were a hedonist Greek school of philosophy founded in the 4th century BC by Socrates' student, Aristippus of Cyrene, although many of the principles of the school are believed to have been formalized by his grandson of the same name, Aristippus the Younger. The school was so called after Cyrene, the birthplace of Aristippus and where he began teaching. It was one of the earliest Socratic schools. The school died out within a century.\n\nThe Cyrenaics taught that the only intrinsic good is pleasure, which meant not just the absence of pain, but positively enjoyable momentary sensations. Of these, physical ones are stronger than those of anticipation or memory. They did, however, recognize the value of social obligation, and that pleasure could be gained from altruism.\n\nThe Cyrenaics were known for their skeptical theory of knowledge, reducing logic to a basic doctrine concerning the criterion of truth. They thought that we can know with certainty only our immediate sense-experiences (for instance, that one is having a sweet sensation), but can know nothing about the nature of the objects that cause these sensations (for instance, that honey is sweet). They also denied that we can have knowledge of what the experiences of other people are like. All knowledge is immediate sensation. These sensations are motions that are purely subjective, and are painful, indifferent or pleasant, according as they are violent, tranquil or gentle. Further, they are entirely individual and can in no way be described as constituting absolute objective knowledge. Feeling, therefore, is the only possible criterion of knowledge and of conduct. Our ways of being affected are alone knowable, thus the sole aim for everyone should be pleasure.\n\nCyrenaicism deduces a single, universal aim for all people: pleasure. Furthermore, all feeling is momentary and homogeneous; past and future pleasure have no real existence for us, and that among present pleasures there is no distinction of kind. Socrates had spoken of the higher pleasures of the intellect; the Cyrenaics denied the validity of this distinction and said that bodily pleasures, being more simple and more intense, were preferable. Momentary pleasure, preferably of a physical kind, is the only good for humans. However some actions which give immediate pleasure can create more than their equivalent of pain. The wise person should be in control of pleasures rather than be enslaved to them, otherwise pain will result, and this requires judgement to evaluate the different pleasures of life. Regard should be paid to law and custom, because even though these things have no intrinsic value on their own, violating them will lead to unpleasant penalties being imposed by others. Likewise, friendship and justice are useful because of the pleasure they provide. Thus the Cyrenaics believed in the hedonistic value of social obligation and altruistic behaviour.\n\nEpicureanism \n\nEpicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus (), founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus and Leucippus. His materialism led him to a general stance against superstition or the idea of divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom very little is known—Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest, sustainable \"pleasure\" in the form of a state of tranquility and freedom from fear (ataraxia) and absence of bodily pain (aponia) through knowledge of the workings of the world and the limits of our desires. The combination of these two states is supposed to constitute happiness in its highest form. Although Epicureanism is a form of hedonism, insofar as it declares pleasure as the sole intrinsic good, its conception of absence of pain as the greatest pleasure and its advocacy of a simple life make it different from \"hedonism\" as it is commonly understood.\n\nIn the Epicurean view, the highest pleasure (tranquility and freedom from fear) was obtained by knowledge, friendship and living a virtuous and temperate life. He lauded the enjoyment of simple pleasures, by which he meant abstaining from bodily desires, such as sex and appetites, verging on asceticism. He argued that when eating, one should not eat too richly, for it could lead to dissatisfaction later, such as the grim realization that one could not afford such delicacies in the future. Likewise, sex could lead to increased lust and dissatisfaction with the sexual partner. Epicurus did not articulate a broad system of social ethics that has survived but had a unique version of the Golden Rule.\n\nIt is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly (agreeing \"neither to harm nor be harmed\"), and it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.\n\nEpicureanism was originally a challenge to Platonism, though later it became the main opponent of Stoicism. Epicurus and his followers shunned politics. After the death of Epicurus, his school was headed by Hermarchus; later many Epicurean societies flourished in the Late Hellenistic era and during the Roman era (such as those in Antiochia, Alexandria, Rhodes and Ercolano). The poet Lucretius is its most known Roman proponent. By the end of the Roman Empire, having undergone Christian attack and repression, Epicureanism had all but died out, and would be resurrected in the 17th century by the atomist Pierre Gassendi, who adapted it to the Christian doctrine.\n\nSome writings by Epicurus have survived. Some scholars consider the epic poem On the Nature of Things by Lucretius to present in one unified work the core arguments and theories of Epicureanism. Many of the papyrus scrolls unearthed at the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum are Epicurean texts. At least some are thought to have belonged to the Epicurean Philodemus.\n\nAsian philosophy\n\nYangism\n\nYangism has been described as a form of psychological and ethical egoism. The Yangist philosophers believed in the importance of maintaining self-interest through \"keeping one's nature intact, protecting one's uniqueness, and not letting the body be tied by other things\". Disagreeing with the Confucian virtues of li ('propriety'), ren ('humaneness'), and yi ('righteousness'), and the Legalist virtue of fa (law), the Yangists saw wei wo (, '[everything] for myself') as the only virtue necessary for self-cultivation. Individual pleasure is considered desirable, like in hedonism, but not at the expense of the health of the individual. The Yangists saw individual well-being as the prime purpose of life, and considered anything that hindered that well-being immoral and unnecessary.\n\nThe main focus of the Yangists was on the concept of xing (), or human nature, a term later incorporated by Mencius into Confucianism. The xing, according to sinologist A. C. Graham, is a person's \"proper course of development\" in life. Individuals can only rationally care for their own xing, and should not naively have to support the xing of other people, even if it means opposing the emperor. In this sense, Yangism is a \"direct attack\" on Confucianism, by implying that the power of the emperor, defended in Confucianism, is baseless and destructive, and that state intervention is morally flawed.\n\nThe Confucian philosopher Mencius depicts Yangism as the direct opposite of Mohism, which promotes the idea of universal love and impartial caring. In contrast, the Yangists acted only \"for themselves,\" rejecting the altruism of Mohism. He criticized the Yangists as selfish, ignoring the duty of serving the public and caring only for personal concerns. Mencius saw Confucianism as the \"Middle Way\" between Mohism and Yangism.\n\nIndian philosophy\n\nThe concept of hedonism is also found in nāstika ('atheist', as in heterodox) schools of Hinduism, for instance the Charvaka school. However, Hedonism is criticized by āstika ('theist', as in orthodox) schools of thought on the basis that it is inherently egoistic and therefore detrimental to spiritual liberation.\n\nAbrahamic philosophy\n\nJudaism \n\nJudaism believes that the world was created to serve God, and in order to do so properly, God in turn gives mankind the opportunity to experience pleasure in the process of serving Him (Talmud Kidushin 82:b). In recent years, Rabbi Noah Weinberg articulated five different levels of pleasure, of which connecting with God is the highest possible pleasure. The Book of Ecclesiastes (2:24) in the Old Testament proclaims: \"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God...\"\n\nChristianity \n\nEthical hedonism as part of Christian theology has also been a concept in some evangelical circles, particularly in those of the Reformed tradition. The term Christian Hedonism was first coined by Reformed-Baptist theologian John Piper in his 1986 book Desiring God:My shortest summary of it is: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. Or: The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. Does Christian Hedonism make a god out of pleasure? No. It says that we all make a god out of what we take most pleasure in.Piper states his term may describe the theology of Jonathan Edwards, who in his 1746 Treatise Concerning Religious Affections referred to \"a future enjoyment of Him [God] in heaven.\" Already in the 17th century, the atomist Pierre Gassendi had adapted Epicureanism to the Christian doctrine.\n\nIslam\n\nIn Islam, one of the main duties of a Muslim is to conquer his nafs (his ego, self, passions, desires) and to be free from it. Certain joys of life are permissible provided they do not lead to excess or evildoing that may bring harm. It is understood that everyone takes their passion as their idol, Islam calls these tawaghit (idols) and taghut (worship of other than Allah) so there has to be a means of controlling these nafs.\n\nUtilitarianism\n\nUtilitarianism addresses problems with moral motivation neglected by Kantianism by giving a central role to happiness. It is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall good of the society. It is thus one form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its resulting outcome. The most influential contributors to this theory are considered to be the 18th and 19th-century British philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Conjoining hedonism—as a view as to what is good for people—to utilitarianism has the result that all action should be directed toward achieving the greatest total amount of happiness (measured via hedonic calculus). Though consistent in their pursuit of happiness, Bentham and Mill's versions of hedonism differ.\n\nThere are two somewhat basic schools of thought on hedonism.\n\nBentham \nOne school, grouped around Bentham, defends a quantitative approach. Bentham believed that the value of a pleasure could be quantitatively understood. Essentially, he believed the value of pleasure to be its intensity multiplied by its duration—so it was not just the number of pleasures, but their intensity and how long they lasted that must be taken into account.\n\nMill \nOther proponents, like Mill, argue a qualitative approach. Mill believed that there can be different levels of pleasure—higher quality pleasure is better than lower quality pleasure. Mill also argues that simpler beings (he often refers to pigs) have an easier access to the simpler pleasures; since they do not see other aspects of life, they can simply indulge in their lower pleasures. The more elaborate beings tend to spend more thought on other matters and hence lessen the time for simple pleasure. It is therefore more difficult for them to indulge in such \"simple pleasures\" in the same manner.\n\nLibertinage \n\nAn extreme form of hedonism that views moral and sexual restraint as either unnecessary or harmful. Famous proponents are Marquis de Sade and John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester.\n\nContemporary approaches \nContemporary proponents of hedonism include Swedish philosopher Torbjörn Tännsjö, Fred Feldman, and Spanish ethic philosopher Esperanza Guisán (published a \"Hedonist manifesto\" in 1990). Dan Haybron has distinguished between psychological, ethical, welfare and axiological hedonism.\n\nMichel Onfray \n\nA dedicated contemporary hedonist philosopher and writer on the history of hedonistic thought is the French Michel Onfray, who has written two books directly on the subject, L'invention du plaisir: fragments cyréaniques and La puissance d'exister : Manifeste hédoniste. He defines hedonism \"as an introspective attitude to life based on taking pleasure yourself and pleasuring others, without harming yourself or anyone else.\" Onfray's philosophical project is to define an ethical hedonism, a joyous utilitarianism, and a generalized aesthetic of sensual materialism that explores how to use the brain's and the body's capacities to their fullest extent—while restoring philosophy to a useful role in art, politics, and everyday life and decisions.\"\n\nOnfray's works \"have explored the philosophical resonances and components of (and challenges to) science, painting, gastronomy, sex and sensuality, bioethics, wine, and writing. His most ambitious project is his projected six-volume Counter-history of Philosophy,\" of which three have been published. For Onfray:In opposition to the ascetic ideal advocated by the dominant school of thought, hedonism suggests identifying the highest good with your own pleasure and that of others; the one must never be indulged at the expense of sacrificing the other. Obtaining this balance – my pleasure at the same time as the pleasure of others – presumes that we approach the subject from different angles – political, ethical, aesthetic, erotic, bioethical, pedagogical, historiographical....For this, he has \"written books on each of these facets of the same world view.\" His philosophy aims for \"micro-revolutions\", or \"revolutions of the individual and small groups of like-minded people who live by his hedonistic, libertarian values.\"\n\nAbolitionism (David Pearce) \n\nThe Abolitionist Society is a transhumanist group calling for the abolition of suffering in all sentient life through the use of advanced biotechnology. Their core philosophy is negative utilitarianism.\n\nDavid Pearce is a theorist of this perspective who believes and promotes the idea that there exists a strong ethical imperative for humans to work towards the abolition of suffering in all sentient life. His book-length internet manifesto The Hedonistic Imperative outlines how technologies such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, pharmacology, and neurosurgery could potentially converge to eliminate all forms of unpleasant experience among human and non-human animals, replacing suffering with gradients of well-being, a project he refers to as \"paradise engineering.\" A transhumanist and a vegan, Pearce believes that we (or our future posthuman descendants) have a responsibility not only to avoid cruelty to animals within human society but also to alleviate the suffering of animals in the wild.\n\nIn a talk given at the Future of Humanity Institute and at the Charity International, 'Happiness Conference', Pearce said:\n\nSadly, what won't abolish suffering, or at least not on its own, is socio-economic reform, or exponential economic growth, or technological progress in the usual sense, or any of the traditional panaceas for solving the world's ills. Improving the external environment is admirable and important; but such improvement can't recalibrate our hedonic treadmill above a genetically constrained ceiling. Twin studies confirm there is a [partially] heritable set-point of well-being - or ill-being - around which we all tend to fluctuate over the course of a lifetime. This set-point varies between individuals. It's possible to lower an individual's hedonic set-point by inflicting prolonged uncontrolled stress; but even this re-set is not as easy as it sounds: suicide-rates typically go down in wartime; and six months after a quadriplegia-inducing accident, studies suggest that we are typically neither more nor less unhappy than we were before the catastrophic event. Unfortunately, attempts to build an ideal society can't overcome this biological ceiling, whether utopias of the left or right, free-market or socialist, religious or secular, futuristic high-tech or simply cultivating one's garden. Even if everything that traditional futurists have asked for is delivered - eternal youth, unlimited material wealth, morphological freedom, superintelligence, immersive VR, molecular nanotechnology, etc - there is no evidence that our subjective quality of life would on average significantly surpass the quality of life of our hunter-gatherer ancestors - or a New Guinea tribesman today - in the absence of reward pathway enrichment. This claim is difficult to prove in the absence of sophisticated neuroscanning; but objective indices of psychological distress e.g. suicide rates, bear it out. Unenhanced humans will still be prey to the spectrum of Darwinian emotions, ranging from terrible suffering to petty disappointments and frustrations - sadness, anxiety, jealousy, existential angst. Their biology is part of \"what it means to be human\". Subjectively unpleasant states of consciousness exist because they were genetically adaptive. Each of our core emotions had a distinct signalling role in our evolutionary past: they tended to promote behaviours that enhanced the inclusive fitness of our genes in the ancestral environment.\n\nHedodynamics (Victor Argonov) \nRussian physicist and philosopher Victor Argonov argues that hedonism is not only a philosophical but also a verifiable scientific hypothesis. In 2014, he suggested \"postulates of pleasure principle,\" the confirmation of which would lead to a new scientific discipline known as hedodynamics.\n\nHedodynamics would be able to forecast the distant future development of human civilization and even the probable structure and psychology of other rational beings within the universe. In order to build such a theory, science must discover the neural correlate of pleasure—neurophysiological parameter unambiguously corresponding to the feeling of pleasure (hedonic tone).\n\nAccording to Argonov, posthumans will be able to reprogram their motivations in an arbitrary manner (to get pleasure from any programmed activity). And if pleasure principle postulates are true, then general direction of civilization development is obvious: maximization of integral happiness in posthuman life (product of life span and average happiness). Posthumans will avoid constant pleasure stimulation, because it is incompatible with rational behavior required to prolong life. However, they can become on average much happier than modern humans.\n\nMany other aspects of posthuman society could be predicted by hedodynamics if the neural correlate of pleasure were discovered. For example, optimal number of individuals, their optimal body size (whether it matters for happiness or not) and the degree of aggression.\n\nCriticism\nCritics of hedonism have objected to its exclusive concentration on pleasure as valuable or that the retentive breadth of dopamine is limited.\n\nIn particular, G. E. Moore offered a thought experiment in criticism of pleasure as the sole bearer of value: he imagined two worlds—one of exceeding beauty and the other a heap of filth. Neither of these worlds will be experienced by anyone. The question then is if it is better for the beautiful world to exist than the heap of filth. In this, Moore implied that states of affairs have value beyond conscious pleasure, which he said spoke against the validity of hedonism.\n\nPerhaps the most famous objection to hedonism is Robert Nozick's famous experience machine. Nozick asks us to just hypothetically imagine a machine that will allow us to experience whatever we want—if we want to experience making friends, it will give this to us. Nozick claims that by hedonistic logic, we should remain in this machine for the rest of our lives. However, he gives three reasons why this is not a preferable scenario: firstly, because we want to do certain things, as opposed to merely experience them; secondly, we want to be a certain kind of person, as opposed to an 'indeterminate blob' and thirdly, because such a thing would limit our experiences to only what we can imagine. Peter Singer, a hedonistic utilitarian, and Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek have both argued against such an objection by saying that it only provides an answer to certain forms of hedonism, and ignores others.\n\nSee also\n Affectionism\n Brave New World\n Eudaimonia\n Hedonism Resorts\n Libertine\n Paradox of hedonism\n Pleasure principle (psychology)\n Psychological hedonism\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nSources \n\n \n Socrates and Hedonism: \"Protagoras\" 351b-358d Donald J.ZEYL\n\nFurther reading \n Feldman, Fred. 2006. Pleasure and the Good Life: Concerning the Nature, Varieties, and Plausibility of Hedonism. Oxford University Press.\n —— 1997. Utilitarianism, Hedonism, and Desert: Essays in Moral Philosophy. Cambridge University Press\n —— 2010. What Is This Thing Called Happiness?. Oxford University Press\n\n Onfray, Michel. 2002. L'invention du plaisir : fragments cyréaniques. Le Livre de Poche.\n —— 2006. La puissance d'exister : Manifeste hédoniste. Grasset & Fasquelle\n Pearce, David. The Hedonistic Imperative.\n Tännsjö, Torbjörn. 1998. Hedonistic Utilitarianism. Edinburgh University Press\n Wilde, Oscar. 1891. The Picture of Dorian Gray. (Hedonism is prominent throughout the novel, influencing many of the decisions made by the titular protagonist.)\n\nExternal links \n\n \n Manifesto of the Hedonist International\n \nTheories of Well-Being, in William MacAskill & Richard Yetter-Chappell (2021), Introduction to Utilitarianism.\n\n \nMotivation\nConsequentialism\nUtilitarianism\nEthical theories\nPhilosophical movements\nThought experiments in ethics"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What did he conclude or find in his study? | 7 | What did Havelock Ellis conclude or find in his study? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"Brian Frederick Schaffner is a political scientist. He is the Newhouse Professor of Civic Studies at Tufts University and a faculty associate at Harvard University's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He is also the founding director of the UMass Poll and a co-principal investigator for the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES), a survey of about 50,000 U.S. voters. He has criticized President Donald Trump for citing a 2014 study based on data from the CCES as proof that voter fraud is widespread in the United States. Of this study, Schaffner told CNN that \"Of the people who we were sure were non-citizens, we could not find any who actually cast a vote.\" He has also said that the authors of the study Trump cited, Jesse Richman and David Earnest, used inaccurate methodology to conclude that millions of non-citizens voted in U.S. elections. He told MassLive.com in January 2017 that \"I have been very vocal in speaking out about the study, especially because I feel a sense of responsibility\".\n\nSelected works \n\n Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail, with Raymond J. La Raja. (University of Michigan Press, 2015 ).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nFaculty page\n\nLiving people\nAmerican political scientists\nUniversity of Georgia alumni\nIndiana University alumni\nUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst faculty\n1975 births",
"Fei Xin (; - after 1436) was a member of the military personnel of the fleet of the Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He, known as the author of a book about the countries visited by Chinese ships.\n\nBiography \nLittle is known about Fei Xin's life. His family originated from Kunshan, in today's Jiangsu Province. Based on other dates mentioned by him, it is likely that he was born in the 17th year of the Hongwu era (1385), although some authors' calculation give 1388 as the date of his birth. He taught himself the Arabic language. \n\nAccording to what Fei Xin says in the preface to his book, his family was poor. His older brother was called up to serve at the nearby Taicang garrison, but soon died, and young Fei Xin took his place, in or after 1398. J.J.L. Duyvendak speculated that the Fei brothers had been conscripted as a punishment for some political or other offense of their father or grandfather; there is no actual proof of that, but Fei Xin's later biographer, Roderich Ptak, thought that that wasn't impossible.\n\nWhile a soldier, he managed to find time for study. Taicang being the lower-Yangtze base of the Zheng He fleet, Fei Xin ended up sailing with the fleet to the South-East Asia and the Indian Ocean four times.\n\nFei Xin is primarily known as the author of the book Xingcha Shenglan (Description of the Starry Raft; preface dated 1436), in which he recorded what he had seen on his 4 voyages to the southern seas. There are no known mentions of his activities at later dates than 1436, and there is no information about the actual date of his death either.\n\nAccording to Ptak, there is no reliable information about Fei Xin's religion. Ptak believes that it is unlikely that Fei Xin was a Muslim, like Ma Huan or Zheng He himself. Fei Xin did conclude his book with the description of Mecca, but this may have been just an emulation of Ma Huan's book's layout.\n\nFei Xin's book exists in a number of different Ming-era editions. It has been studied by many Chinese and foreign historians. The first English translation of his book was made by William Woodville Rockhill, and published in the T'oung Pao in 1914-1915. The most recent translation, based on a draft by J.V.G. Mills, was edited and annotated by Roderich Ptak (1996).\n\nSee also \n Ma Huan, another participants of Zheng He's expeditions who wrote a book\n Chen Cheng (Ming Dynasty), the Chinese diplomat who left an account of his travels to Samarqand and Herat in the same time period\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nSources \n\n \n (Partial view on Google Books)\n\nFurther reading \n Description of the Starry Raft (1436) Xin Cha Shen Lan 星槎勝覽\n\nExternal links \n \n \n\n14th-century Chinese people\n15th-century Chinese people\n15th-century Chinese writers\nChinese explorers\nHui people\nMing dynasty writers\n1385 births\nChinese travel writers\n15th-century deaths\nWriters from Suzhou\nTreasure voyages\nChinese naval personnel\n15th-century Chinese translators"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven.",
"What did he conclude or find in his study?",
"Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a \"wide range of genital and sexual aptitude.\""
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | Is there any other interesting facts you'd like to share? | 8 | Are there any other interesting facts you'd like to share other than the conclusions regarding children's capability of sexual aptitude? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"The principle of moral supervenience states that moral predicates (e.g., permissible, obligatory, forbidden, etc.) supervene upon non-moral predicates, and hence that moral facts involving these predicates (like stealing is wrong) supervene upon non-moral facts. The moral facts are hence said to be supervenient facts, and the non-moral facts the supervenience base of the former. The principle is sometimes qualified to say that moral facts supervene upon natural facts, i.e., observable, empirical facts within space-time, but a broader conception could allow the supervenience base to include any non-moral facts, including (if there are any) non-natural facts (e.g., divine commands, Platonic truths).\n\nMoral supervenience can be applied to anything which can be the subject of a moral judgment. For example, we often say that actions are right or wrong, permissible or impermissible, etc. But we can also say that a person's character is virtuous or vicious, or that a situation or result is morally good or bad.\n\nClarification and examples \n\nAnother way to put this is to say that moral facts are a function of, depend upon, or are constrained or constituted by, some non-moral facts, and that the latter are a sufficient condition for making the moral facts true. Another common way of putting this is that any change in moral facts must be accompanied by a change in the non-moral facts (i.e., those on which it supervenes), but that the reverse is not the case. A moral fact can supervene on more than one set of non-moral facts-i.e., it is multiply realizable-but any given set of non-moral facts determines the moral facts which supervene upon it.\n\nNot all non-moral predicates are typically thought to be relevant to the application of a moral predicate. For instance, whether a particular killing was done in self-defense or in order to facilitate a robbery is probably relevant to whether it is wrong. But whether it happens in Greenland or England, or in the morning or at night, is not relevant. The principle of moral supervenience does not tell us which such facts are relevant, however; it only says that whichever ones are relevant, are relevant wherever they appear. For instance, if it was wrong for Sam to kill Alice while he was robbing her, and it was wrong because it was done in order to rob her, then if Brenda kills Charles while robbing him is wrong for the same reason. It is impossible for one such killing to be wrong and another right unless they also differ in one or more relevant circumstances.\n\nOf course, there could be additional relevant circumstances; if Charles had previously enslaved Brenda for several years, and she finds an opportunity to escape to freedom but needs his car to do so, and knows that he will pursue and kill her if he remains alive, then her killing of Charles may be permissible. And there could be yet further circumstances which change the moral quality of this killing. But whatever the total relevant non-moral facts are (i.e., that Brenda killed Charles during a robbery, and she was not previous enslaved, etc.), then if the principle of moral supervenience is true, then any other killing where those same non-moral facts are true has the same moral properties as Brenda's killing of Charles. For instance, it is not possible for Brenda's killing of Charles to be right, and Sam's killing of Alice to be wrong, just because Brenda is not Sam. R.M. Hare put this point by saying that the supervenience base of a moral fact could not include \"individual constants\" (including proper names of persons, countries, etc.) One could of course claim that the fact that Brenda is called Brenda, or is a woman rather than a man, is relevant to the morality of her killing; while implausible, this claim would not be ruled out by the principle of moral supervenience, but by other more substantive moral principles. Hence, the moral supervenience is only a very weak constraint on morality.\n\nRelationship to Moral Particularism \n\nThe principle is compatible with a very fine-grained analysis of the supervenience base for moral predicates, and hence is compatible with moral particularism, which claims that whatever non-moral facts make a certain action right or wrong, it is possible that some additional non-moral facts could change that non-moral fact again. For instance, in the above example, Brenda's having been previously enslaved by Charles might making killing him permissible; but if Brenda has been a terrorist imprisoned by Charles to prevent her from committing more violence, then her killing him would instead be impermissible. But yet further circumstances added to this might make her terrorism permissible again (i.e., if Charles was a vicious tyrant whose rule was impervious to anything but a terrorist act). And so forth-perhaps there is no end to the possible circumstances we could add to any given set which would once again change the moral qualities of the act. But again, moral supervenience is compatible with all these claims, for it simply says that if there were another act done by a person with the same non-moral qualities-howsoever complex-which made one act, say, wrong, then that second act is also wrong.\n\nHare, in the first recorded usage of the term moral particularism, defined these as incompatible, saying they were contradictories, but his definition of particularism is not identical with its contemporary usage. Hare used it to refer to the possibility that two persons committing acts with the same natural properties could have different moral properties simply because the acts were done by different persons, which by definition is simply the denial of moral supervenience as he understood it.)\n\nHistory \n\nMoral supervenience is a kind of moral universalizability principle, like the golden rule or Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative, so the underlying idea may be as old as the golden rule. Moral supervenience differs from most other universalizability principles in that it adds no specific criterion for the supervenience base of permissible behaviors, so it cannot function as a comprehensive test for moral permissibility, as most other universalizability principles purport to do.\n\nThe earliest precise specification of the principle may be found in Samuel Clarke's \"Rule of Equity\" according to which \"Whatever I judge reasonable or unreasonable that another should do for me: that by the same judgment I declare reasonable or unreasonable that I should in the like case do for him.\" A few years later William Wollaston echoed this claim with the principle that \"Whatever is either reasonable or unreasonable in B with respect to C, would be just the same in C with respect to B, if the case was inverted. Because reason is universal and respects cases, not persons.\" A few years later Richard Cumberland restated this as a requirement of \"right reason,\" which entailed that “It is included in the notion of a true proposition, (a practical one, for instance,) and is consequently a necessary perfection of a man forming a right judgment in that affair; that it should agree with other true propositions framed about a like subject, tho that case should happen at another time, or belong to another man.... Whoever therefore judges truly, must judge the same things, which he thinks truly are lawful to himself, to be lawful in others in a like case. \" Later versions are found in Reid, Moore, Sidgwick, and Sharp.\n\nThe first usage of the general term \"supervenience\" and the specific term \"moral supervenience\" in print was by R.M. Hare, although he later suggested that the former term was used by other philosophers conversationally before he put them both into print. While Hare was primarily interested in the supervenience of moral concepts on non-moral ones, he also argued that other evaluative concepts, e.g., aesthetic ones like beautiful, pleasant, nice, etc., must also supervene upon non-moral facts. For instance, it is senseless to call one room \"nice\" and another \"not nice\" unless there is some underlying difference between them describable in non-aesthetic terms (like the arrangement of the furniture, color of the walls, etc.) If the two rooms are identical in all their non-aesthetic properties, then they must also be identical in their aesthetic ones.\n\nIn a series of later books, Hare made moral supervenience, combined with the criterion that a rational being would prefer the satisfaction of his preferences over their frustration, the basis of his idea of universal prescriptivism. From this he derived a version of utilitarianism, by arguing that to prescribe a particular action in one's circumstances was only rational if you would prescribe anyone's else's doing it, even if you were equally likely to be any agent (including all those affected, for good or ill, by the action). This would only be true if, were you to personally experience all the good and bad effects of the action upon all affected persons (i.e., the satisfaction and frustration of their preferences), you would not prefer some other action to the one in question. He often simply called moral supervenience \"universalizability\" and equated it with Kant's principle of universal law, although the two are not the same (see moral universalizability).\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography \n\nConcepts in ethics\nPhilosophy articles needing expert attention",
"The Open Database License (ODbL) is a copyleft license agreement intended to allow users to freely share, modify, and use a database while maintaining this same freedom for others.\n\nODbL is published by Open Data Commons, which is part of Open Knowledge Foundation.\n\nThe ODbL was created with the goal of allowing users to share their data freely without worrying about problems relating to copyright or ownership. It allows users to freely use the data in the database, including in other databases; edit existing data in the database; and add new data to the database. The license establishes the rights of users of the database, as well as the correct procedure for attributing credit where credit is due for the data, and how to make changes or improvements in the data, thus simplifying the sharing and comparison of data.\n\nFreedoms\n To Share: To copy, distribute and use the database.\n To Create: To produce works from the database.\n To Adapt: To modify, transform and build upon the database.\n\nConditions\n\n Attribute: You must attribute any public use of the database, or works produced from the database, in the manner specified in the ODbL. For any use or redistribution of the database, or works produced from it, you must make clear to others the license of the database and keep intact any notices on the original database.\n Share-Alike: If you publicly use any adapted version of this database, or works produced from an adapted database, you must also offer that adapted database under the ODbL.\n Keep open: If you redistribute the database, or an adapted version of it, then you may use technological measures that restrict the work (such as digital rights management) as long as you also redistribute a version without such measures.\n\nNotable uses\n\nThe OpenStreetMap (OSM) project completed the move from a Creative Commons license to ODbL in September 2012 in an attempt to have more legal security and a more specific license for databases rather than creative works.\n\nOther projects using ODbL include OpenCorporates, Open Data Blend, Open Food Facts, and Paris OpenData.\n\nSee also \n\n Sui generis database right\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOpen Database License (ODbL) Open Data Commons\n\nLicensing\nDatabases\nOpen data\nOpenStreetMap\nCopyleft"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven.",
"What did he conclude or find in his study?",
"Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a \"wide range of genital and sexual aptitude.\"",
"Is there any other interesting facts you'd like to share?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | Did he reference any work in his studies? | 9 | Did Havelock Ellis reference any work in his studies? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"Tanjore Vilviah Sambasivam Pillai was an Indian scholar in Siddha medicine, a traditional medicine which originated from India. He is known for his Tamil – English Dictionary of Medicine, Chemistry, Botany and Allied Sciences which is considered as one of the major works on Siddha medicine. He did not have any formal training or education in medicine.\n\nBiography\nPillai was born on 19 September 1880 in Bangalore. He was the eldest son of his father Vilviah Manniar and his mother Manonmani Ammal. He belonged to a family native to Kamuganchenthangudi village near Tanjore. He later migrated to Bangalore. While in Bangalore, due to an epidemic outbreak of plague, his family shifted to their native village but Pillai stayed in Bangalore to continue his education. After schooling, he was appointed as a clerck in the Madras City Police Commissioner’s office. He married Duraikannu Ammal in 1903. They had five sons however all of them died of various reasons. In 1914, his wife died due to cholera. In 1916, he married again to Ammani Ammal but she died at a childbirth that year. Following depression and to overcome the same, he dedicated himself to study of Siddha medicine. He did not have any formal training or education in medicine. While studying Siddha, he realised that there was no authentic work on the subject in English. So he wrote Tamil – English Dictionary of Medicine, Chemistry, Botany and Allied Sciences, which is considered as one of the major work on Siddha medicine. He died on 12 November 1953.\n\nRecognition\nIn recognition to his work, the Government of Tamil Nadu sanctioned Rs. 5000 in 1949 as a financial assistance for his research and provided an accommodation at Triplicane, Chennai. He was also awarded Rs. 5000 each by the University of Madras and Mysore University in recognition of his work. On 30 August 2019, the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp of Rs. 5 in the series of Masters of AYUSH recognizing services of twelve modern masters of Indian systems of medicine.\n\nWorks\n\nPillai spent nearly 16 years collecting material for Tamil – English Dictionary of Medicine, Chemistry, Botany and Allied Sciences. He spent his salary, lands and others assets to collect. In 1938, he compiled and published two volumes of his work at his own expense. He could only publish the third volume partially. The remaining part was published with partial help from the Government of Tamil Nadu. The fourth and fifth volumes were published in 1977 and 1978 respectively by G. D. Naidu and his son G. D. N. Gopal.\n\nThe work provides information about plants, minerals, metals and animals used in the Siddha medicine. The work consists of five volumes spanning 6,537 pages. It contains nearly 80,000 words explained in detail. The work provides synonyms for Tamil words in Latin/English. It also describes and explains any given word with appropriate annotations where required.\n\nIt was renamed as The Greatness of Siddha Medicine and was published at the Second World Tamil Conference held in Chennai in 1968.\n\nThe work used as the reference work for the B.S.M.S., M.D (Siddha) and Ph. D. studies as well as the reference work for literature research scholars.\n\nReferences\n\nSiddha medicine\n1880 births\n1953 deaths",
"Harvey Sacks (July 19, 1935 – November 14, 1975) was an American sociologist influenced by the ethnomethodology tradition. He pioneered extremely detailed studies of the way people use language in everyday life. Despite his early death in a car crash and the fact that he did not publish widely, he founded the discipline of conversation analysis. His work has had significant influence on fields such as linguistics, discourse analysis, and discursive psychology.\n\nLife and academic career\nSacks received his doctoral degree in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley (1966), an LL.B. at Yale Law School (1959), and a B.A. at Columbia College (1955). He lectured at the University of California, Los Angeles and Irvine from 1964-1975. \n\nIn 1975 Sacks died in a car accident. He was survived by his wife, two siblings, and his parents.\n\nWork\n\nSacks became interested in the structure of conversation while working at a suicide counseling hotline in Los Angeles in the 1960s. The calls to the hotline were recorded, and Sacks was able to gain access to the tapes and study them. In the 1960s, prominent linguists like Noam Chomsky believed that conversation was too disorganized to be worthy of any kind of in-depth structural analysis . Sacks strongly disagreed, since he saw structure in every conversation, and developed conversation analysis as a result.\n\nSacks's recorded lectures were transcribed (by Gail Jefferson who also edited them posthumously) but the tapes were not saved. The duplicated copies of the transcribed lectures were made freely available by Sacks and achieved international circulation and recognition during his lifetime and subsequently .\n\nHe treated such topics as: the organization of person-reference; topic organization and stories in conversation; speaker selection preferences; pre-sequences; the organization of turn-taking; conversational openings and closings; and puns, jokes, stories and repairs in conversation among many others.\n\nLegacy\n\nEmanuel Schegloff, one of Sacks's close collaborators, colleagues and co-authors, became his literary executor. The subsequent handling of the literary estate (Nachlass, to use the academic term) has attracted some controversy.\n\nSacks's major work, Lectures on Conversation, is composed of edited revisions of transcribed lectures held from Spring 1964 through to 1972, and comprises about 1200 pages in a two-volume work published by Basil Blackwel in 1992. This publication project was instigated largely by David Sudnow and Gail Jefferson, colleagues and students of Sacks at Berkeley, UCLA and Irvine, and includes an introduction by Emanuel Schegloff. In her acknowledgements in these volumes, Jefferson mentioned the help of Sudnow in dealing with Sacks's literary estate. The Harvey Sacks Memorial Association, registered as a not-for-profit Association, was formed by Sudnow.\n\nThese Lectures have been important for Sacks's later influence and for the field of Conversation Analysis.\n\nSudnow was a follower of Alfred Schutz in phenomenology, and Harold Garfinkel in ethnomethodology. Sudnow regards the work of Sacks as outside the ethnomethodological mainstream. By contrast Garfinkel lists Sacks as one of 'Ethnomethodology's Authors'\n\nWorks\n\nSacks, H. (1963) \"Sociological Description,\" in Berkeley Journal of Sociology, 8:1–16.\nSacks, H. (1967) \"The Search for Help. No One To Turn To,\" In E.S. Schneidman (ed) Essays in Self Destruction, New York, NY: Science House, pp. 203–223. \nSacks, H. and Garfinkel, H. (1970) \"On formal structures of practical action,\" in J.C. McKinney and E.A. Tiryakian (eds.), Theoretical Sociology, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1970, pp. 338–366. Reprinted in H. Garfinkel, ed., (1986) Ethnomethodological Studies of Work, 160-193.\nSacks, H. (1972) \"An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data for Doing Sociology,\" in D. Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction, Free Press, New York, pp. 31–74.\nSacks, H. (1972) \"Notes on Police Assessment of Moral Character,\" in D.N. Sudnow (ed.) Studies in Social Interaction, Free Press, New York, NY, pp. 280–293.\nSacks, H. (1973/1987). On the preferences for agreement and contiguity in sequences in conversation. In G. Button & J. R. Lee (Eds.), Talk and social organisation (pp. 54 – 69). Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.\nSacks, H. (1974) \"On the Analyzability of Stories by Children,\" in R. Turner (ed.) Ethnomethodology, Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp. 216–232.\nSacks, H. (1974) \"An Analysis of the Course of a Joke's telling in Conversation,\" in R. Bauman and J.F. Sherzer (eds.) Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking. Cambridge, UK; Cambridge University Press, pp. 337–353.\nSacks, H., Schegloff, E. A. & Jefferson, G. (1974) \"A Simplest Systematics for the Organisation of Turn-Taking for Conversation,\" in Language, 50:696–735.\nSacks, H. (1975) \"Everyone Has To Lie,\" in B. Blount and M. Sanches (eds.) Sociocultural Dimensions of Language Use, Academic Press, New York, NY, pp. 57–80.\nSacks, H. (1978) \"Some Technical Considerations of a Dirty Joke,\" in J. Schenkein (ed.) Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, Academic Press, New York, NY, pp. 249–269.\nSacks, H. (1979) \"Hotrodder: A Revolutionary Category,\" in G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. Irvington Press, New York, NY, pp. 7–14.\nSacks, H. and E.A. Schegloff. (1979) \"Two Preferences in the Organization of Reference to Persons in Conversation and Their Interaction,\" in G. Psathas (ed.) Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology, Irvington Press, New York, NY, pp. 15–21.\nSacks, H. (1989) \"Lectures 1964-1965,\" in Gail Jefferson (ed.) with an Introduction/Memoir by E.A. Schegloff, Human Studies, 12: 211–393.\nSacks, H. (1992). \"Lectures on Conversation, Volumes I and II\" Edited by G. Jefferson with Introduction by E.A. Schegloff, Blackwell, Oxford.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nArchival collections\nGuide to the Harvey Sacks Lecture Transcripts. Special Collections and Archives, The UC Irvine Libraries, Irvine, California.\n\nAmerican sociologists\n1975 deaths\n1935 births"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven.",
"What did he conclude or find in his study?",
"Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a \"wide range of genital and sexual aptitude.\"",
"Is there any other interesting facts you'd like to share?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Did he reference any work in his studies?",
"He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France"
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What kind of work did those authors do? | 10 | What kind of work did authors Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez do? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | true | [
"\"What Kind of Fool\" is a 1981 vocal duet between Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb.\n\nWhat Kind of Fool may also refer to:\n\n \"What Kind of Fool\" (Lionel Cartwright song), a 1991 song by Lionel Cartwright\n \"What Kind of Fool (Heard All That Before)\", a 1992 song performed by Kylie Minogue\n \"What Kind of Fool Am I?\", a 1962 song recorded by several artists\n \"What Kind of Fool (Do You Think I Am)\", a 1964 song by The Tamms\n \"What Kind of Fool Do You Think I Am\", a 1992 song by Lee Roy Parnell\n \"What Kind of Fool\", a 1988 single by All About Eve",
"Constitutivism is the position in meta-ethics which links what we ought to do morally with the rules about our make up as agents who perform actions of any kind. It claims to answer doubts about the validity of moral judgements, and about moral objectivity, by explaining that we cannot help but act, therefore we act in accordance with moral rules which are essential to any acting being.\n\nAlthough a recent development in moral philosophy, it has its roots in the work of Kant in moral philosophy.\n\nSome authors in constitutivism\nChristine Korsgaard and David Velleman are prominent writers on constitutivism, although defending different versions.\n\nCriticism\nConstitutivism has been criticised for various reasons, chiefly for circularity. It is claimed that it presupposes the truth of what it seeks to justify, i.e. moral judgements and truths.\n\nNotes\n\nContemporary philosophy\nEthical theories\nMeta-ethics"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven.",
"What did he conclude or find in his study?",
"Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a \"wide range of genital and sexual aptitude.\"",
"Is there any other interesting facts you'd like to share?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Did he reference any work in his studies?",
"He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France",
"What kind of work did those authors do?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What else can you tell me about Ellis? | 11 | What else can you tell me about Ellis in addition to his findings in Physiology of Sex and reference to the work of other authors ? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"Forever Young is Kaysha's album released 2009.\n\nTrack list\n\n Anti Bad Music Police\n Be With You\n Digital Sexyness\n Duro\n Fanta & Avocado\n Forever Young Intro\n Funky Makaku\n Glorious Beautiful\n Heaven\n Hey Girl\n I Give You the Music\n I Still Love You\n Joachim\n Kota Na Piste\n Les Belles Histoires D'amour\n Love You Need You\n Loving and Kissing\n Make More Dollars\n Nobody Else\n On Veut Juste Danser\n Once Again\n Outro\n Paradisio / Inferno\n Pour Toujours\n Pure\n Si Tu T'en Vas\n Simple Pleasures\n Tell Me What We Waiting For\n That African Shit\n The Sweetest Thing\n The Way You Move\n Toi Et Moi\n U My Bb\n Yes You Can\n You + Me\n You're My Baby Girl\n\n2009 albums",
"Songs in a Mellow Mood is a 1954 studio album by Ella Fitzgerald, accompanied by the pianist Ellis Larkins. The complete album was re-issued as part of the 1994 MCA Records CD, Pure Ella.\n\nTrack listing\nSide one\n\"I'm Glad There Is You\" (Jimmy Dorsey, Paul Mertz) – 3:10\n\"What Is There to Say?\" (Vernon Duke, Yip Harburg) – 3:22\n\"People Will Say We're in Love\" (Oscar Hammerstein II, Richard Rodgers) – 3:12\n\"Please Be Kind\" (Sammy Cahn, Saul Chaplin) – 3:36\n\"Until the Real Thing Comes Along\" (Cahn, Chaplin, Alberta Nichols, Mann Holiner, L.E. Freeman) – 2:58\n\"Makin' Whoopee\" (Walter Donaldson, Gus Kahn) – 3:07\nSide two \n\"Imagination\" (Johnny Burke, Jimmy Van Heusen) – 2:38\n\"Stardust\" (Hoagy Carmichael, Mitchell Parish) – 4:03\n\"My Heart Belongs to Daddy\" (Cole Porter) – 2:39\n\"You Leave Me Breathless\" (Ralph Freed, Frederick Hollander) – 3:07\n\"Baby, What Else Can I Do?\" (Gerald Marks, Walter Hirsch) – 3:50\n\"Nice Work If You Can Get It\" (George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin) – 2:38\n\nPersonnel\n Ella Fitzgerald - vocals\n Ellis Larkins - piano\n\nReferences\n\n1954 albums\nElla Fitzgerald albums\nAlbums produced by Milt Gabler\nDecca Records albums"
] |
[
"Havelock Ellis",
"Sexual impulse in youth",
"Did she write any books about sexual impulse?",
"goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity.",
"What was the name of the book?",
"Psychology of Sex,",
"What did he say in the book?",
"\"If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'\"",
"What age approximately did he say that this impulse developed?",
"studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six.",
"Who is more likely to experience it, males or females?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"Are all children able to experience pleasure?",
"twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven.",
"What did he conclude or find in his study?",
"Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a \"wide range of genital and sexual aptitude.\"",
"Is there any other interesting facts you'd like to share?",
"He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as \"reflex signs of irritation\" are typically not vividly remembered.",
"Did he reference any work in his studies?",
"He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France",
"What kind of work did those authors do?",
"These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four.",
"What else can you tell me about Ellis?",
"Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation."
] | C_195bf0b9a0e24be29c971593436d12ed_1 | What are those varying levels? | 12 | What are the varying levels of sexual excitation according to Ellis? | Havelock Ellis | Dr. Havelock Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse,'" he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience. Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded that of girls. Dr. Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude." Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable." CANNOTANSWER | He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children experience are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. | Henry Havelock Ellis (2 February 1859 – 8 July 1939) was an English physician, eugenicist, writer, progressive intellectual and social reformer who studied human sexuality. He co-wrote the first medical textbook in English on homosexuality in 1897, and also published works on a variety of sexual practices and inclinations, as well as on transgender psychology. He is credited with introducing the notions of narcissism and autoeroticism, later adopted by psychoanalysis.
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He supported eugenics and served as one of 16 vice-presidents of the Eugenics Society from 1909 to 1912.
Early life and career
Ellis, son of Edward Peppen Ellis and Susannah Mary Wheatley, was born in Croydon, Surrey (now part of Greater London). He had four sisters, none of whom married. His father was a sea captain, his mother the daughter of a sea captain, and many other relatives lived on or near the sea. When he was seven his father took him on one of his voyages, during which they called at Sydney, Australia; Callao, Peru; and Antwerp, Belgium. After his return, Ellis attended the French and German College near Wimbledon, and afterward attended a school in Mitcham.
In April 1875, Ellis sailed on his father's ship for Australia; soon after his arrival in Sydney, he obtained a position as a master at a private school. After the discovery of his lack of training, he was fired and became a tutor for a family living a few miles from Carcoar, New South Wales. He spent a year there and then obtained a position as a master at a grammar school in Grafton, New South Wales. The headmaster had died and Ellis carried on at the school for that year, but was unsuccessful.
At the end of the year, he returned to Sydney and, after three months' training, was given charge of two government part-time elementary schools, one at Sparkes Creek, near Scone, New South Wales, and the other at Junction Creek. He lived at the school house on Sparkes Creek for a year. He wrote in his autobiography, "In Australia, I gained health of body, I attained peace of soul, my life task was revealed to me, I was able to decide on a professional vocation, I became an artist in literature; these five points covered the whole activity of my life in the world. Some of them I should doubtless have reached without the aid of the Australian environment, scarcely all, and most of them I could never have achieved so completely if chance had not cast me into the solitude of the Liverpool Range."
Medicine and psychology
Ellis returned to England in April 1879. He had decided to take up the study of sex and felt his first step must be to qualify as a physician. He studied at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School, now part of King's College London, but never had a regular medical practice. His training was aided by a small legacy and also income earned from editing works in the Mermaid Series of lesser known Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. He joined The Fellowship of the New Life in 1883, meeting other social reformers Eleanor Marx, Edward Carpenter and George Bernard Shaw.
The 1897 English translation of Ellis's book Sexual Inversion, co-authored with John Addington Symonds and originally published in German in 1896, was the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. It describes male homosexual relations as well as adolescent rape. Ellis wrote the first objective study of homosexuality, as he did not characterise it as a disease, immoral, or a crime. The work assumes that same-sex love transcended age taboos as well as gender taboos. The first edition of the book was bought-out by the executor of Symond's estate, who forbade any mention of Symonds in the second edition.
In 1897 a bookseller was prosecuted for stocking Ellis's book. Although the term homosexual is attributed to Ellis, he wrote in 1897, "'Homosexual' is a barbarously hybrid word, and I claim no responsibility for it." In fact, the word homosexual was coined in 1868 by the Hungarian author Karl-Maria Kertbeny.
Ellis may have developed psychological concepts of autoerotism and narcissism, both of which were later developed further by Sigmund Freud. Ellis's influence may have reached Radclyffe Hall, who would have been about 17 years old at the time Sexual Inversion was published. She later referred to herself as a sexual invert and wrote of female "sexual inverts" in Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself and The Well of Loneliness. When Ellis bowed out as the star witness in the trial of The Well of Loneliness on 14 May 1928, Norman Haire was set to replace him but no witnesses were called.
Eonism
Ellis studied what today are called transgender phenomena. Together with Magnus Hirschfeld, Havelock Ellis is considered a major figure in the history of sexology to establish a new category that was separate and distinct from homosexuality. Aware of Hirschfeld's studies of transvestism, but disagreeing with his terminology, in 1913 Ellis proposed the term sexo-aesthetic inversion to describe the phenomenon. In 1920 he coined the term eonism, which he derived from the name of a historical figure, the Chevalier d'Éon. Ellis explained:
Ellis found eonism to be "a remarkably common anomaly", and "next in frequency to homosexuality among sexual deviations", and categorized it as "among the transitional or intermediate forms of sexuality". As in the Freudian tradition, Ellis postulated that a "too close attachment to the mother" may encourage eonism, but also considered that it "probably invokes some defective endocrine balance".
Marriage
In November 1891, at the age of 32, and reportedly still a virgin, Ellis married the English writer and proponent of women's rights Edith Lees. From the beginning, their marriage was unconventional, as Edith Lees was openly lesbian. At the end of the honeymoon, Ellis went back to his bachelor rooms in Paddington. She lived at Fellowship House. Their "open marriage" was the central subject in Ellis's autobiography, My Life. Ellis reportedly had an affair with Margaret Sanger.
According to Ellis in My Life, his friends were much amused at his being considered an expert on sex. Some knew that he reportedly suffered from impotence until the age of 60. He then discovered that he could become aroused by the sight of a woman urinating. Ellis named this "undinism". After his wife died, Ellis formed a relationship with a French woman, Françoise Lafitte.
Eugenics
Ellis was a supporter of eugenics. He served as vice-president to the Eugenics Education Society and wrote on the subject, among others, in The Task of Social Hygiene:
In his early writings, it was clear that Ellis concurred with the notion that there was a system of racial hierarchies, and that non-western cultures were considered to be "lower races". Before explicitly talking about eugenic topics, he used the prevalence of homosexuality in these 'lower races' to indicate the universality of the behavior. In his work, Sexual Inversions, where Ellis presented numerous cases of homosexuality in Britain, he was always careful to mention the race of the subject and the health of the person's 'stock', which included their neuropathic conditions and the health of their parents. However, Ellis was clear to assert that he did not feel that homosexuality was an issue that eugenics needed to actively deal with, as he felt that once the practice was accepted in society, those with homosexual tendencies would comfortably choose not to marry, and thus would cease to pass the 'homosexual heredity' along.
In a debate in the Sociological Society, Ellis corresponded with noted eugenicist Francis Galton, who was presenting a paper in support of marriage restrictions. While Galton analogized eugenics to breeding domesticated animals, Ellis felt that a greater sense of caution was needed before applying the eugenic regulations to populations, as "we have scarcely yet realized how subtle and far-reaching hereditary influences are." Instead, because unlike domesticated animals, humans were in charge of who they mated with, Ellis argued that a greater emphasis was needed on public education about how vital this issue was. Ellis thus held much more moderate views than many contemporary eugenicists. In fact, Ellis also fundamentally disagreed with Galton's leading ideas that procreation restrictions were the same as marriage restrictions. Ellis believed that those who should not procreate should still be able to gain all the other benefits of marriage, and to not allow that was an intolerable burden. This, in his mind, was what led to eugenics being "misunderstood, ridiculed, and regarded as a fad".
Throughout his life, Ellis was both a member and later a council member of the Eugenics Society. Moreover, he played a role on the General Committee of the First International Eugenics Congress.
Sexual impulse in youth
Ellis' 1933 book, Psychology of Sex, is one of the many manifestations of his interest in human sexuality. In this book, he goes into vivid detail of how children can experience sexuality differently in terms of time and intensity. He mentions that it was previously believed that, in childhood, humans had no sex impulse at all. "If it is possible to maintain that the sex impulse has no normal existence in early life, then every manifestation of it at that period must be 'perverse, he adds. He continues by stating that, even in the early development and lower function levels of the genitalia, there is a wide range of variation in terms of sexual stimulation. He claims that the ability of some infants producing genital reactions, seen as "reflex signs of irritation" are typically not vividly remembered. Since the details of these manifestations are not remembered, there is no possible way to determine them as pleasurable. However, Ellis claims that many people of both sexes can recall having agreeable sensations with the genitalia as a child. "They are not (as is sometimes imagined) repressed." They are, however, not usually mentioned to adults. Ellis argues that they typically stand out and are remembered for the sole contrast of the intense encounter to any other ordinary experience.
Ellis claims that sexual self-excitement is known to happen at an early age. He references authors like Marc, Fonssagrives, and Perez in France who published their findings in the nineteenth century. These early ages are not strictly limited to ages close to puberty as can be seen in their findings. These authors provide cases for children of both sexes who have masturbated from the age of three or four. Ellis references Robie's findings that boys' first sex feelings appear between the ages of five and fourteen. For girls, this age ranges from eight to nineteen. For both sexes, these first sexual experiences arise more frequently during the later years as opposed to the earlier years. Ellis then references G.V. Hamilton's studies that found twenty percent of males and fourteen percent of females have pleasurable experiences with their sex organs before the age of six. This is only supplemented by Ellis' reference to Katharine Davis' studies, which found that twenty to twenty-nine percent of boys and forty-nine to fifty-one percent of girls were masturbating by the age of eleven. However, in the next three years after, boys' percentages exceeded those of girls.
Ellis also contributed to the idea of varying levels of sexual excitation. He asserts it is a mistake to assume all children are able to experience genital arousal or pleasurable erotic sensations. He proposes cases where an innocent child is led to believe that stimulation of the genitalia will result in a pleasurable erection. Some of these children may fail and not be able to experience this either pleasure or an erection until puberty. Ellis concludes, then, that children are capable of a "wide range of genital and sexual aptitude". Ellis even considers ancestry as contributions to different sexual excitation levels, stating that children of "more unsound heredity" and/or hypersexual parents are "more precociously excitable".
Auto-eroticism
Ellis' views of auto-eroticism were very comprehensive, including much more than masturbation. Auto-eroticism, according to Ellis, includes a wide range of phenomena. Ellis states in his 1897 book Studies in the Psychology of Sex, that auto-eroticism ranges from erotic day-dreams, marked by a passivity shown by the subject, to "unshamed efforts at sexual self-manipulation witnessed among the insane".
Ellis also argues that auto-erotic impulses can be heightened by bodily processes like menstrual flow. During this time, he says, women, who would otherwise not feel a strong propensity for auto-eroticism, increase their masturbation patterns. This trend is absent, however, in women without a conscious acceptance of their sexual feelings and in a small percentage of women suffering from a sexual or general ailment which result in a significant amount of "sexual anesthesia".
Ellis also raises social concern over how auto-erotic tendencies affect marriages. He goes on to tying auto-eroticism to declining marriage rates. As these rates decline, he concludes that auto-eroticism will only increase in both amount and intensity for both men and women. Therefore, he states, this is an important issue to both the moralist and physician to investigate psychological underpinnings of these experiences and determine an attitude toward them.
Smell
Ellis believed that the sense of smell, although ineffective at long ranges, still contributes to sexual attraction, and therefore, to mate selection. In his 1905 book, Sexual selection in man, Ellis makes a claim for the sense of smell in the role of sexual selection. He asserts that while we have evolved out of a great necessity for the sense of smell, we still rely on our sense of smell with sexual selection. The contributions that smell makes in sexual attraction can even be heightened with certain climates. Ellis states that with warmer climates come a heightened sensitivity to sexual and other positive feelings of smell among normal populations. Because of this, he believes people are often delighted by odors in the East, particularly in India, in "Hebrew and Mohammedan lands". Ellis then continues by describing the distinct odours in various races, noting that the Japanese race has the least intense of bodily odours. Ellis concludes his argument by stating, "On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odours play a not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest, but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection is comparatively small."
Views on women and birth control
Ellis favoured feminism from a eugenic perspective, feeling that the enhanced social, economic, and sexual choices that feminism provided for women would result in women choosing partners who were more eugenically sound. In his view, intelligent women would not choose, nor be forced to marry and procreate with feeble-minded men.
Ellis viewed birth control as merely the continuation of an evolutionary progression, noting that natural progress has always consisted of increasing impediments to reproduction, which lead to a lower quantity of offspring, but a much higher quality of them. From a eugenic perspective, birth control was an invaluable instrument for the elevation of the race. However, Ellis noted that birth control could not be used randomly in a way that could have a detrimental impact by reducing conception, but rather needed to be used in a targeted manner to improve the qualities of certain 'stocks'. He observed that it was unfortunately the 'superior stocks' who had knowledge of and used birth control while the 'inferior stocks' propagated without checks. Ellis' solution to this was a focus on contraceptives in education, as this would disseminate the knowledge in the populations that he felt needed them the most. Ellis argued that birth control was the only available way of making eugenic selection practicable, as the only other option was wide-scale abstention from intercourse for those who were 'unfit'.
Views on sterilization
Ellis was strongly opposed to the idea of castration for eugenic purposes. In 1909, regulations were introduced at the Cantonal Asylum in Bern, which allowed those deemed 'unfit' and with strong sexual inclinations to be mandatorily sterilized. In a particular instance, several men and women, including epileptics and paedophiles, were castrated, some of whom voluntarily requested it. While the results were positive, in that none of the subjects were found guilty of any more sexual offences, Ellis remained staunchly opposed to the practice. His view on the origin of these inclinations was that sexual impulses do not reside in the sexual organs, but rather they persist in the brain. Moreover, he posited that the sexual glands provided an important source of internal secretions vital for the functioning of the organism, and thus their removal could greatly injure the patient.
However, already in his time, Ellis was witness to the rise of vasectomies and ligatures of the Fallopian tubes, which performed the same sterilization without removing the whole organ. In these cases, Ellis was much more favourable, yet still maintaining that "sterilization of the unfit, if it is to be a practical and humane measure commanding general approval, must be voluntary on the part of the person undergoing it, and never compulsory." His opposition to such a system was not only rooted in morality. Rather, Ellis also considered the practicality of the situation, hypothesizing that if an already mentally unfit man is forced to undergo sterilization, he would only become more ill-balanced, and would end up committing more anti-social acts.
Though Ellis was never at ease with the idea of forced sterilizations, he was willing to find ways to circumvent that restriction. His focus was on the social ends of eugenics, and as a means to it, Ellis was in no way against 'persuading' 'volunteers' to undergo sterilization by withdrawing Poor Relief from them. While he preferred to convince those he deemed unfit using education, Ellis supported coercion as a tool. Furthermore, he supported adding ideas about eugenics and birth control to the education system in order to restructure society, and to promote social hygiene. For Ellis, sterilization seemed to be the only eugenic instrument that could be used on the mentally unfit. In fact, in his publication The Sterilization of the Unfit, Ellis argued that even institutionalization could not guarantee the complete prevention of procreation between the unfit, and thus, "the burdens of society, to say nothing of the race, are being multiplied. It is not possible to view sterilization with enthusiasm when applied to any class of people…but what, I ask myself, is the practical alternative?"
Psychedelics
Ellis was among the pioneering investigators of psychedelic drugs and the author of one of the first written reports to the public about an experience with mescaline, which he conducted on himself in 1896. He consumed a brew made of 3 Echinocacti (peyote) in the afternoon of Good Friday alone in his apartment in Temple, London. During the experience, lasting for about 24 hours, he noted a plethora of extremely vivid, complex, colourful, pleasantly smelling hallucinations, consisting both of abstract geometrical patterns and definite objects such as butterflies and other insects. He published the account of the experience in The Contemporary Review in 1898 (Mescal: A New Artificial Paradise). The title of the article alludes to an earlier work on the effects of mind-altering substances, an 1860 book Les Paradis artificiels by French poet Charles Baudelaire (containing descriptions of experiments with opium and hashish).
Ellis was so impressed with the aesthetic quality of the experience that he gave some specimens of peyote to the Irish poet W. B. Yeats, a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organisation of which another mescaline researcher, Aleister Crowley, was also a member.
Later life and death
Ellis resigned from his position of Fellow of the Eugenics Society over their stance on sterilization in January 1931.
Ellis spent the last year of his life at Hintlesham, Suffolk, where he died in July 1939. He is buried in Golders Green Crematorium, in North London.
Works
The Criminal (1890)
The New Spirit (1890)
The Nationalisation of Health (1892)
Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary and Tertiary Sexual Characteristics (1894) (revised 1929)
translator: Germinal (by Zola) (1895) (reissued 1933)
with J.A. Symonds
Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897–1928) six volumes (listed below)
Affirmations (1898)
The Nineteenth Century (1900)
A Study of British Genius (1904)
The Soul of Spain (1908)
The Problem of Race-Regeneration (1911)
The World of Dreams (1911) (new edition 1926)
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
The Philosophy of Conflict (1919)
On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue (1921)
Little Essays of Love and Virtue (1922)
Sonnets, with Folk Songs from the Spanish (1925)
Eonism and Other Supplementary Studies (1928)
Studies in the Psychology of Sex Vol. 7 (1928)
The Art of Life (1929) (selected and arranged by Mrs. S. Herbert)
More Essays of Love and Virtue (1931)
ed.: James Hinton: Life in Nature (1931)
ed.: Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection, by Walter Savage Landor (1933)
Chapman (1934)
My Confessional (1934)
Questions of Our Day (1934)
From Rousseau to Proust (1935)
Selected Essays (1936)
Poems (1937) (selected by John Gawsworth; pseudonym of T. Fytton Armstrong)
Love and Marriage (1938) (with others)
Sex Compatibility in Marriage (1939)
From Marlowe to Shaw (1950) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Genius of Europe (1950)
Sex and Marriage (1951) (ed. by J. Gawsworth)
The Unpublished Letters of Havelock Ellis to Joseph Ishill (1954)
References
Bibliography
Further reading
(U.S. title)
External links
Havelock Ellis papers (MS 195). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Henry Havelock Ellis papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
1859 births
1939 deaths
19th-century English non-fiction writers
20th-century English non-fiction writers
Alumni of King's College London
Alumni of St Thomas's Hospital Medical School
British sexologists
English eugenicists
English psychologists
People from Croydon
Psychedelic drug advocates
British relationships and sexuality writers
Medical writers on LGBT topics
British social reformers
Transgender studies academics
Victorian writers
Translators of Émile Zola | false | [
"Power resource theory is a political theory which proposes the idea that the distribution of power between major classes is to some extent accountable for the successes and failure of various political ideologies. It argues that \"working class power achieved through organisation by labor unions or left parties, produces more egalitarian distributional outcomes\".\n\nPioneered in the 1970s and 80s through the works of Walter Korpi, Gøsta Esping-Andersen, and John Stephens, the power resource theory is a method of approach utilized to examine the characteristics and varying levels of impacts of social policies as well as social inequalities on advanced industrialized nations. The power resources approach attempts to account for the various approaches to social policy adopted by nations, predominately focusing on the role and strength of labor mobilization to gather a more encompassing explanation for the varying levels of development and efficiencies of social policies. Therefore, the power resource theory “helps to account for the emergence and development of institutions” and the varying “empowered actors attempting to generate differential distributions of rewards.” This is a result of the varying policy preferences of different social classes.\n\nWhile the power resource theory is arguably the most successful theory in explaining the variations in development and efficiencies of social protection systems and institutions among developed democracies, there are criticisms that point out the lack of accountability for factors such as variations in “coverage, extension, and generosity among welfare states” in addition to not accounting for the importance of political mobilization based on social class. Competing theories have also challenged PRT with alternative explanations for the varying levels of welfare development such as the importance of employers and cross-class alliances that exist in coordinated market societies.\n\nReferences\n\n Furze, Savy, Brym, Lie \"Sociology in Today's World\" (Cengage Learning, 2008) pp. 178–180.\n\nPolitical science theories",
"A Workgang is a group of individuals who are assigned, or engaged in, a common task.\nExamples include Prison Workgangs used for farming, construction, trash collection/waste management, fire fighting, or inmate emergency services.\nSuch workgangs have varying levels of supervision ranging from Armed Corrections Officers, Unarmed Community Supervision, to self-supervised Trustees.\n\nEmployment"
] |
[
"Georg Cantor",
"One-to-one correspondence"
] | C_002fb3e375d742f8ae31096aef44fc19_0 | What is one-to-one correspondence? | 1 | What is one-to-one correspondence? | Georg Cantor | Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas!" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension. In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one. This paper displeased Kronecker, and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle. CANNOTANSWER | He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. | Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( , ; – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.
Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran Christian, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. It is important to note that not all theologians were against Cantor's theory, prominent neo-scholastic philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of it and Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin accepted it as a valid theory (after Cantor made some important clarifications).
The objections to Cantor's work were occasionally fierce: Leopold Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth". Kronecker objected to Cantor's proofs that the algebraic numbers are countable, and that the transcendental numbers are uncountable, results now included in a standard mathematics curriculum. Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory", which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder.
The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by declaring, "No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created."
Life of Georg Cantor
Youth and studies
Georg Cantor was born in 1845 in the western merchant colony of Saint Petersburg, Russia, and brought up in the city until he was eleven. Cantor, the oldest of six children, was regarded as an outstanding violinist. His grandfather Franz Böhm (1788–1846) (the violinist Joseph Böhm's brother) was a well-known musician and soloist in a Russian imperial orchestra. Cantor's father had been a member of the Saint Petersburg stock exchange; when he became ill, the family moved to Germany in 1856, first to Wiesbaden, then to Frankfurt, seeking milder winters than those of Saint Petersburg. In 1860, Cantor graduated with distinction from the Realschule in Darmstadt; his exceptional skills in mathematics, trigonometry in particular, were noted. In August 1862, he then graduated from the "Höhere Gewerbeschule Darmstadt", now the Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 1862, Cantor entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. After receiving a substantial inheritance upon his father's death in June 1863, Cantor shifted his studies to the University of Berlin, attending lectures by Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass and Ernst Kummer. He spent the summer of 1866 at the University of Göttingen, then and later a center for mathematical research. Cantor was a good student, and he received his doctorate degree in 1867.
Teacher and researcher
Cantor submitted his dissertation on number theory at the University of Berlin in 1867. After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor took up a position at the University of Halle, where he spent his entire career. He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment at Halle University.
In 1874, Cantor married Vally Guttmann. They had six children, the last (Rudolph) born in 1886. Cantor was able to support a family despite modest academic pay, thanks to his inheritance from his father. During his honeymoon in the Harz mountains, Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard Dedekind, whom he had met two years earlier while on Swiss holiday.
Cantor was promoted to extraordinary professor in 1872 and made full professor in 1879. To attain the latter rank at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a chair at a more prestigious university, in particular at Berlin, at that time the leading German university. However, his work encountered too much opposition for that to be possible. Kronecker, who headed mathematics at Berlin until his death in 1891, became increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of having Cantor as a colleague, perceiving him as a "corrupter of youth" for teaching his ideas to a younger generation of mathematicians. Worse yet, Kronecker, a well-established figure within the mathematical community and Cantor's former professor, disagreed fundamentally with the thrust of Cantor's work ever since he intentionally delayed the publication of Cantor's first major publication in 1874. Kronecker, now seen as one of the founders of the constructive viewpoint in mathematics, disliked much of Cantor's set theory because it asserted the existence of sets satisfying certain properties, without giving specific examples of sets whose members did indeed satisfy those properties. Whenever Cantor applied for a post in Berlin, he was declined, and it usually involved Kronecker, so Cantor came to believe that Kronecker's stance would make it impossible for him ever to leave Halle.
In 1881, Cantor's Halle colleague Eduard Heine died, creating a vacant chair. Halle accepted Cantor's suggestion that it be offered to Dedekind, Heinrich M. Weber and Franz Mertens, in that order, but each declined the chair after being offered it. Friedrich Wangerin was eventually appointed, but he was never close to Cantor.
In 1882, the mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind came to an end, apparently as a result of Dedekind's declining the chair at Halle. Cantor also began another important correspondence, with Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Sweden, and soon began to publish in Mittag-Leffler's journal Acta Mathematica. But in 1885, Mittag-Leffler was concerned about the philosophical nature and new terminology in a paper Cantor had submitted to Acta. He asked Cantor to withdraw the paper from Acta while it was in proof, writing that it was "... about one hundred years too soon." Cantor complied, but then curtailed his relationship and correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, writing to a third party, "Had Mittag-Leffler had his way, I should have to wait until the year 1984, which to me seemed too great a demand! ... But of course I never want to know anything again about Acta Mathematica."
Cantor suffered his first known bout of depression in May 1884. Criticism of his work weighed on his mind: every one of the fifty-two letters he wrote to Mittag-Leffler in 1884 mentioned Kronecker. A passage from one of these letters is revealing of the damage to Cantor's self-confidence:
This crisis led him to apply to lecture on philosophy rather than mathematics. He also began an intense study of Elizabethan literature thinking there might be evidence that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship question); this ultimately resulted in two pamphlets, published in 1896 and 1897.
Cantor recovered soon thereafter, and subsequently made further important contributions, including his diagonal argument and theorem. However, he never again attained the high level of his remarkable papers of 1874–84, even after Kronecker's death on December 29, 1891. He eventually sought, and achieved, a reconciliation with Kronecker. Nevertheless, the philosophical disagreements and difficulties dividing them persisted.
In 1889, Cantor was instrumental in founding the German Mathematical Society and chaired its first meeting in Halle in 1891, where he first introduced his diagonal argument; his reputation was strong enough, despite Kronecker's opposition to his work, to ensure he was elected as the first president of this society. Setting aside the animosity Kronecker had displayed towards him, Cantor invited him to address the meeting, but Kronecker was unable to do so because his wife was dying from injuries sustained in a skiing accident at the time. Georg Cantor was also instrumental in the establishment of the first International Congress of Mathematicians, which was held in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1897.
Later years and death
After Cantor's 1884 hospitalization, there is no record that he was in any sanatorium again until 1899. Soon after that second hospitalization, Cantor's youngest son Rudolph died suddenly on December 16 (Cantor was delivering a lecture on his views on Baconian theory and William Shakespeare), and this tragedy drained Cantor of much of his passion for mathematics. Cantor was again hospitalized in 1903. One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The paper attempted to prove that the basic tenets of transfinite set theory were false. Since the paper had been read in front of his daughters and colleagues, Cantor perceived himself as having been publicly humiliated. Although Ernst Zermelo demonstrated less than a day later that König's proof had failed, Cantor remained shaken, and momentarily questioning God. Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria. The events of 1904 preceded a series of hospitalizations at intervals of two or three years. He did not abandon mathematics completely, however, lecturing on the paradoxes of set theory (Burali-Forti paradox, Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox) to a meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in 1903, and attending the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in 1904.
In 1911, Cantor was one of the distinguished foreign scholars invited to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Cantor attended, hoping to meet Bertrand Russell, whose newly published Principia Mathematica repeatedly cited Cantor's work, but this did not come about. The following year, St. Andrews awarded Cantor an honorary doctorate, but illness precluded his receiving the degree in person.
Cantor retired in 1913, living in poverty and suffering from malnourishment during World War I. The public celebration of his 70th birthday was canceled because of the war. In June 1917, he entered a sanatorium for the last time and continually wrote to his wife asking to be allowed to go home. Georg Cantor had a fatal heart attack on January 6, 1918, in the sanatorium where he had spent the last year of his life.
Mathematical work
Cantor's work between 1874 and 1884 is the origin of set theory. Prior to this work, the concept of a set was a rather elementary one that had been used implicitly since the beginning of mathematics, dating back to the ideas of Aristotle. No one had realized that set theory had any nontrivial content. Before Cantor, there were only finite sets (which are easy to understand) and "the infinite" (which was considered a topic for philosophical, rather than mathematical, discussion). By proving that there are (infinitely) many possible sizes for infinite sets, Cantor established that set theory was not trivial, and it needed to be studied. Set theory has come to play the role of a foundational theory in modern mathematics, in the sense that it interprets propositions about mathematical objects (for example, numbers and functions) from all the traditional areas of mathematics (such as algebra, analysis and topology) in a single theory, and provides a standard set of axioms to prove or disprove them. The basic concepts of set theory are now used throughout mathematics.
In one of his earliest papers, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is "more numerous" than the set of natural numbers; this showed, for the first time, that there exist infinite sets of different sizes. He was also the first to appreciate the importance of one-to-one correspondences (hereinafter denoted "1-to-1 correspondence") in set theory. He used this concept to define finite and infinite sets, subdividing the latter into denumerable (or countably infinite) sets and nondenumerable sets (uncountably infinite sets).
Cantor developed important concepts in topology and their relation to cardinality. For example, he showed that the Cantor set, discovered by Henry John Stephen Smith in 1875, is nowhere dense, but has the same cardinality as the set of all real numbers, whereas the rationals are everywhere dense, but countable. He also showed that all countable dense linear orders without end points are order-isomorphic to the rational numbers.
Cantor introduced fundamental constructions in set theory, such as the power set of a set A, which is the set of all possible subsets of A. He later proved that the size of the power set of A is strictly larger than the size of A, even when A is an infinite set; this result soon became known as Cantor's theorem. Cantor developed an entire theory and arithmetic of infinite sets, called cardinals and ordinals, which extended the arithmetic of the natural numbers. His notation for the cardinal numbers was the Hebrew letter (aleph) with a natural number subscript; for the ordinals he employed the Greek letter ω (omega). This notation is still in use today.
The Continuum hypothesis, introduced by Cantor, was presented by David Hilbert as the first of his twenty-three open problems in his address at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. Cantor's work also attracted favorable notice beyond Hilbert's celebrated encomium. The US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce praised Cantor's set theory and, following public lectures delivered by Cantor at the first International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897, Adolf Hurwitz and Jacques Hadamard also both expressed their admiration. At that Congress, Cantor renewed his friendship and correspondence with Dedekind. From 1905, Cantor corresponded with his British admirer and translator Philip Jourdain on the history of set theory and on Cantor's religious ideas. This was later published, as were several of his expository works.
Number theory, trigonometric series and ordinals
Cantor's first ten papers were on number theory, his thesis topic. At the suggestion of Eduard Heine, the Professor at Halle, Cantor turned to analysis. Heine proposed that Cantor solve an open problem that had eluded Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Rudolf Lipschitz, Bernhard Riemann, and Heine himself: the uniqueness of the representation of a function by trigonometric series. Cantor solved this problem in 1869. It was while working on this problem that he discovered transfinite ordinals, which occurred as indices n in the nth derived set Sn of a set S of zeros of a trigonometric series. Given a trigonometric series f(x) with S as its set of zeros, Cantor had discovered a procedure that produced another trigonometric series that had S1 as its set of zeros, where S1 is the set of limit points of S. If Sk+1 is the set of limit points of Sk, then he could construct a trigonometric series whose zeros are Sk+1. Because the sets Sk were closed, they contained their limit points, and the intersection of the infinite decreasing sequence of sets S, S1, S2, S3,... formed a limit set, which we would now call Sω, and then he noticed that Sω would also have to have a set of limit points Sω+1, and so on. He had examples that went on forever, and so here was a naturally occurring infinite sequence of infinite numbers ω, ω + 1, ω + 2, ...
Between 1870 and 1872, Cantor published more papers on trigonometric series, and also a paper defining irrational numbers as convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind, whom Cantor befriended in 1872, cited this paper later that year, in the paper where he first set out his celebrated definition of real numbers by Dedekind cuts. While extending the notion of number by means of his revolutionary concept of infinite cardinality, Cantor was paradoxically opposed to theories of infinitesimals of his contemporaries Otto Stolz and Paul du Bois-Reymond, describing them as both "an abomination" and "a cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor also published an erroneous "proof" of the inconsistency of infinitesimals.
Set theory
The beginning of set theory as a branch of mathematics is often marked by the publication of Cantor's 1874 paper, "Ueber eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"). This paper was the first to provide a rigorous proof that there was more than one kind of infinity. Previously, all infinite collections had been implicitly assumed to be equinumerous (that is, of "the same size" or having the same number of elements). Cantor proved that the collection of real numbers and the collection of positive integers are not equinumerous. In other words, the real numbers are not countable. His proof differs from the diagonal argument that he gave in 1891. Cantor's article also contains a new method of constructing transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers were first constructed by Joseph Liouville in 1844.
Cantor established these results using two constructions. His first construction shows how to write the real algebraic numbers as a sequence a1, a2, a3, .... In other words, the real algebraic numbers are countable. Cantor starts his second construction with any sequence of real numbers. Using this sequence, he constructs nested intervals whose intersection contains a real number not in the sequence. Since every sequence of real numbers can be used to construct a real not in the sequence, the real numbers cannot be written as a sequence – that is, the real numbers are not countable. By applying his construction to the sequence of real algebraic numbers, Cantor produces a transcendental number. Cantor points out that his constructions prove more – namely, they provide a new proof of Liouville's theorem: Every interval contains infinitely many transcendental numbers. Cantor's next article contains a construction that proves the set of transcendental numbers has the same "power" (see below) as the set of real numbers.
Between 1879 and 1884, Cantor published a series of six articles in Mathematische Annalen that together formed an introduction to his set theory. At the same time, there was growing opposition to Cantor's ideas, led by Leopold Kronecker, who admitted mathematical concepts only if they could be constructed in a finite number of steps from the natural numbers, which he took as intuitively given. For Kronecker, Cantor's hierarchy of infinities was inadmissible, since accepting the concept of actual infinity would open the door to paradoxes which would challenge the validity of mathematics as a whole. Cantor also introduced the Cantor set during this period.
The fifth paper in this series, "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre" ("Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates"), published in 1883, was the most important of the six and was also published as a separate monograph. It contained Cantor's reply to his critics and showed how the transfinite numbers were a systematic extension of the natural numbers. It begins by defining well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers are then introduced as the order types of well-ordered sets. Cantor then defines the addition and multiplication of the cardinal and ordinal numbers. In 1885, Cantor extended his theory of order types so that the ordinal numbers simply became a special case of order types.
In 1891, he published a paper containing his elegant "diagonal argument" for the existence of an uncountable set. He applied the same idea to prove Cantor's theorem: the cardinality of the power set of a set A is strictly larger than the cardinality of A. This established the richness of the hierarchy of infinite sets, and of the cardinal and ordinal arithmetic that Cantor had defined. His argument is fundamental in the solution of the Halting problem and the proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. Cantor wrote on the Goldbach conjecture in 1894.
In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published a two-part paper in Mathematische Annalen under Felix Klein's editorship; these were his last significant papers on set theory. The first paper begins by defining set, subset, etc., in ways that would be largely acceptable now. The cardinal and ordinal arithmetic are reviewed. Cantor wanted the second paper to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis, but had to settle for expositing his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. Cantor attempts to prove that if A and B are sets with A equivalent to a subset of B and B equivalent to a subset of A, then A and B are equivalent. Ernst Schröder had stated this theorem a bit earlier, but his proof, as well as Cantor's, was flawed. Felix Bernstein supplied a correct proof in his 1898 PhD thesis; hence the name Cantor–Bernstein–Schröder theorem.
One-to-one correspondence
Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension.
In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one.
This paper displeased Kronecker and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Karl Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle.
Continuum hypothesis
Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is exactly aleph-one, rather than just at least aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety.
The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Kurt Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can be neither proved nor disproved using standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (the combination referred to as "ZFC").
Absolute infinite, well-ordering theorem, and paradoxes
In 1883, Cantor divided the infinite into the transfinite and the absolute.
The transfinite is increasable in magnitude, while the absolute is unincreasable. For example, an ordinal α is transfinite because it can be increased to α + 1. On the other hand, the ordinals form an absolutely infinite sequence that cannot be increased in magnitude because there are no larger ordinals to add to it. In 1883, Cantor also introduced the well-ordering principle "every set can be well-ordered" and stated that it is a "law of thought".
Cantor extended his work on the absolute infinite by using it in a proof. Around 1895, he began to regard his well-ordering principle as a theorem and attempted to prove it. In 1899, he sent Dedekind a proof of the equivalent aleph theorem: the cardinality of every infinite set is an aleph. First, he defined two types of multiplicities: consistent multiplicities (sets) and inconsistent multiplicities (absolutely infinite multiplicities). Next he assumed that the ordinals form a set, proved that this leads to a contradiction, and concluded that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. He used this inconsistent multiplicity to prove the aleph theorem. In 1932, Zermelo criticized the construction in Cantor's proof.
Cantor avoided paradoxes by recognizing that there are two types of multiplicities. In his set theory, when it is assumed that the ordinals form a set, the resulting contradiction implies only that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. In contrast, Bertrand Russell treated all collections as sets, which leads to paradoxes. In Russell's set theory, the ordinals form a set, so the resulting contradiction implies that the theory is inconsistent. From 1901 to 1903, Russell discovered three paradoxes implying that his set theory is inconsistent: the Burali-Forti paradox (which was just mentioned), Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox. Russell named paradoxes after Cesare Burali-Forti and Cantor even though neither of them believed that they had found paradoxes.
In 1908, Zermelo published his axiom system for set theory. He had two motivations for developing the axiom system: eliminating the paradoxes and securing his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Zermelo had proved this theorem in 1904 using the axiom of choice, but his proof was criticized for a variety of reasons. His response to the criticism included his axiom system and a new proof of the well-ordering theorem. His axioms support this new proof, and they eliminate the paradoxes by restricting the formation of sets.
In 1923, John von Neumann developed an axiom system that eliminates the paradoxes by using an approach similar to Cantor's—namely, by identifying collections that are not sets and treating them differently. Von Neumann stated that a class is too big to be a set if it can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the class of all sets. He defined a set as a class that is a member of some class and stated the axiom: A class is not a set if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between it and the class of all sets. This axiom implies that these big classes are not sets, which eliminates the paradoxes since they cannot be members of any class. Von Neumann also used his axiom to prove the well-ordering theorem: Like Cantor, he assumed that the ordinals form a set. The resulting contradiction implies that the class of all ordinals is not a set. Then his axiom provides a one-to-one correspondence between this class and the class of all sets. This correspondence well-orders the class of all sets, which implies the well-ordering theorem. In 1930, Zermelo defined models of set theory that satisfy von Neumann's axiom.
Philosophy, religion, literature and Cantor's mathematics
The concept of the existence of an actual infinity was an important shared concern within the realms of mathematics, philosophy and religion. Preserving the orthodoxy of the relationship between God and mathematics, although not in the same form as held by his critics, was long a concern of Cantor's. He directly addressed this intersection between these disciplines in the introduction to his Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre, where he stressed the connection between his view of the infinite and the philosophical one. To Cantor, his mathematical views were intrinsically linked to their philosophical and theological implications – he identified the Absolute Infinite with God, and he considered his work on transfinite numbers to have been directly communicated to him by God, who had chosen Cantor to reveal them to the world. He was a devout Lutheran whose explicit Christian beliefs shaped his philosophy of science. Joseph Dauben has traced the effect Cantor's Christian convictions had on the development of transfinite set theory.
Debate among mathematicians grew out of opposing views in the philosophy of mathematics regarding the nature of actual infinity. Some held to the view that infinity was an abstraction which was not mathematically legitimate, and denied its existence. Mathematicians from three major schools of thought (constructivism and its two offshoots, intuitionism and finitism) opposed Cantor's theories in this matter. For constructivists such as Kronecker, this rejection of actual infinity stems from fundamental disagreement with the idea that nonconstructive proofs such as Cantor's diagonal argument are sufficient proof that something exists, holding instead that constructive proofs are required. Intuitionism also rejects the idea that actual infinity is an expression of any sort of reality, but arrive at the decision via a different route than constructivism. Firstly, Cantor's argument rests on logic to prove the existence of transfinite numbers as an actual mathematical entity, whereas intuitionists hold that mathematical entities cannot be reduced to logical propositions, originating instead in the intuitions of the mind. Secondly, the notion of infinity as an expression of reality is itself disallowed in intuitionism, since the human mind cannot intuitively construct an infinite set. Mathematicians such as L. E. J. Brouwer and especially Henri Poincaré adopted an intuitionist stance against Cantor's work. Finally, Wittgenstein's attacks were finitist: he believed that Cantor's diagonal argument conflated the intension of a set of cardinal or real numbers with its extension, thus conflating the concept of rules for generating a set with an actual set.
Some Christian theologians saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God. In particular, neo-Thomist thinkers saw the existence of an actual infinity that consisted of something other than God as jeopardizing "God's exclusive claim to supreme infinity". Cantor strongly believed that this view was a misinterpretation of infinity, and was convinced that set theory could help correct this mistake: "... the transfinite species are just as much at the disposal of the intentions of the Creator and His absolute boundless will as are the finite numbers.". It is to note that prominent neo-scholastic german philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of such theory, holding that it didn't oppose the nature of God.
Cantor also believed that his theory of transfinite numbers ran counter to both materialism and determinism – and was shocked when he realized that he was the only faculty member at Halle who did not hold to deterministic philosophical beliefs.
It was important to Cantor that his philosophy provided an "organic explanation" of nature, and in his 1883 Grundlagen, he said that such an explanation could only come about by drawing on the resources of the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz. In making these claims, Cantor may have been influenced by FA Trendelenburg, whose lecture courses he attended at Berlin, and in turn Cantor produced a Latin commentary on Book 1 of Spinoza's Ethica. FA Trendelenburg was also the examiner of Cantor's Habilitationsschrift.
In 1888, Cantor published his correspondence with several philosophers on the philosophical implications of his set theory. In an extensive attempt to persuade other Christian thinkers and authorities to adopt his views, Cantor had corresponded with Christian philosophers such as Tilman Pesch and Joseph Hontheim, as well as theologians such as Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin, who once replied by equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Although later this Cardinal accepted the theory as valid, due to some clarifications from Cantor's. Cantor even sent one letter directly to Pope Leo XIII himself, and addressed several pamphlets to him.
Cantor's philosophy on the nature of numbers led him to affirm a belief in the freedom of mathematics to posit and prove concepts apart from the realm of physical phenomena, as expressions within an internal reality. The only restrictions on this metaphysical system are that all mathematical concepts must be devoid of internal contradiction, and that they follow from existing definitions, axioms, and theorems. This belief is summarized in his assertion that "the essence of mathematics is its freedom." These ideas parallel those of Edmund Husserl, whom Cantor had met in Halle.
Meanwhile, Cantor himself was fiercely opposed to infinitesimals, describing them as both an "abomination" and "the cholera bacillus of mathematics".
Cantor's 1883 paper reveals that he was well aware of the opposition his ideas were encountering: "... I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers."
Hence he devotes much space to justifying his earlier work, asserting that mathematical concepts may be freely introduced as long as they are free of contradiction and defined in terms of previously accepted concepts. He also cites Aristotle, René Descartes, George Berkeley, Gottfried Leibniz, and Bernard Bolzano on infinity. Instead, he always strongly rejected Kant's philosophy, in the realms of both the philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. He shared B. Russell's motto "Kant or Cantor", and defined Kant "yonder sophistical Philistine who knew so little mathematics."
Cantor's ancestry
Cantor's paternal grandparents were from Copenhagen and fled to Russia from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. There is very little direct information on them. Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was educated in the Lutheran mission in Saint Petersburg, and his correspondence with his son shows both of them as devout Lutherans. Very little is known for sure about Georg Waldemar's origin or education. Cantor's mother, Maria Anna Böhm, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Saint Petersburg and baptized Roman Catholic; she converted to Protestantism upon marriage. However, there is a letter from Cantor's brother Louis to their mother, stating:
("Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians...") which could be read to imply that she was of Jewish ancestry.
According to biographers Eric Temple Bell, Cantor was of Jewish descent, although both parents were baptized. In a 1971 article entitled "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor", the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions (Annals of Science 27, pp. 345–391, 1971) that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry. (He also states that Cantor's wife, Vally Guttmann, was Jewish).
In a letter written to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen. Specifically, Cantor states in describing his father: "Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde...." ("He was born in Copenhagen of Jewish (lit: 'Israelite') parents from the local Portuguese-Jewish community.")
In addition, Cantor's maternal great uncle, a Hungarian violinist Josef Böhm, has been described as Jewish, which may imply that Cantor's mother was at least partly descended from the Hungarian Jewish community.
In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Cantor described his ancestry and self-perception as follows:
There were documented statements, during the 1930s, that called this Jewish ancestry into question:
Biographies
Until the 1970s, the chief academic publications on Cantor were two short monographs by Arthur Moritz Schönflies (1927) – largely the correspondence with Mittag-Leffler – and Fraenkel (1930). Both were at second and third hand; neither had much on his personal life. The gap was largely filled by Eric Temple Bell's Men of Mathematics (1937), which one of Cantor's modern biographers describes as "perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics"; and as "one of the worst". Bell presents Cantor's relationship with his father as Oedipal, Cantor's differences with Kronecker as a quarrel between two Jews, and Cantor's madness as Romantic despair over his failure to win acceptance for his mathematics. Grattan-Guinness (1971) found that none of these claims were true, but they may be found in many books of the intervening period, owing to the absence of any other narrative. There are other legends, independent of Bell – including one that labels Cantor's father a foundling, shipped to Saint Petersburg by unknown parents. A critique of Bell's book is contained in Joseph Dauben's biography. Writes Dauben:
See also
Absolute Infinite
Aleph number
Cardinality of the continuum
Cantor algebra
Cantor cube
Cantor distribution
Cantor function
Cantor medal – award by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in honor of Georg Cantor
Cantor normal form theorem
Cantor space
Cantor tree surface
Cantor's back-and-forth method
Cantor's diagonal argument
Cantor's intersection theorem
Cantor's isomorphism theorem
Cantor's first set theory article
Cantor's paradox
Cantor's theorem
Cantor's leaky tent
Cantor–Bendixson theorem
Cantor–Dedekind axiom
Cantor–Schröder–Bernstein
Cantor–Bernstein theorem
Cantor set
Cardinal number
Continuum hypothesis
Countable set
Derived set (mathematics)
Epsilon numbers (mathematics)
Factorial number system
Heine–Cantor theorem
Pairing function
Smith–Volterra–Cantor set
Transfinite number
Notes
References
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Internet version published in Journal of the ACMS 2004. Note, though, that Cantor's Latin quotation described in this article as a familiar passage from the Bible is actually from the works of Seneca and has no implication of divine revelation.
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. Although the presentation is axiomatic rather than naive, Suppes proves and discusses many of Cantor's results, which demonstrates Cantor's continued importance for the edifice of foundational mathematics.
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Bibliography
Older sources on Cantor's life should be treated with caution. See section § Biographies above.
Primary literature in English
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Primary literature in German
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Published separately as: Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre.
. Almost everything that Cantor wrote. Includes excerpts of his correspondence with Dedekind (p. 443–451) and Fraenkel's Cantor biography (p. 452–483) in the appendix.
Secondary literature
. . A popular treatment of infinity, in which Cantor is frequently mentioned.
. Contains a detailed treatment of both Cantor's and Dedekind's contributions to set theory.
.
. Three chapters and 18 index entries on Cantor.
Newstead, Anne (2009). "Cantor on Infinity in Nature, Number, and the Divine Mind", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 83 (4): 532–553, https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq200983444. With acknowledgement of Dauben's pioneering historical work, this article further discusses Cantor's relation to the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz in depth, and his engagement in the Pantheismusstreit. Brief mention is made of Cantor's learning from F.A.Trendelenburg.
. Chapter 16 illustrates how Cantorian thinking intrigues a leading contemporary theoretical physicist.
. Deals with similar topics to Aczel, but in more depth.
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Leonida Lazzari, L'infinito di Cantor. Editrice Pitagora, Bologna, 2008.
External links
Mainly devoted to Cantor's accomplishment.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Set theory by Thomas Jech. The Early Development of Set Theory by José Ferreirós.
"Cantor infinities", analysis of Cantor's 1874 article, BibNum (for English version, click 'à télécharger'). There is an error in this analysis. It states Cantor's Theorem 1 correctly: Algebraic numbers can be counted. However, it states his Theorem 2 incorrectly: Real numbers cannot be counted. It then says: "Cantor notes that, taken together, Theorems 1 and 2 allow for the redemonstration of the existence of non-algebraic real numbers …" This existence demonstration is non-constructive. Theorem 2 stated correctly is: Given a sequence of real numbers, one can determine a real number that is not in the sequence. Taken together, Theorem 1 and this Theorem 2 produce a non-algebraic number. Cantor also used Theorem 2 to prove that the real numbers cannot be counted. See Cantor's first set theory article or Georg Cantor and Transcendental Numbers.
People from Saint Petersburg
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Set theorists
19th-century German writers
19th-century German male writers
20th-century German writers
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20th-century German mathematicians
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Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni | true | [
"In metaphysics and philosophy of language, the correspondence theory of truth states that the truth or falsity of a statement is determined only by how it relates to the world and whether it accurately describes (i.e., corresponds with) that world.\n\nCorrespondence theories claim that true beliefs and true statements correspond to the actual state of affairs. This type of theory attempts to posit a relationship between thoughts or statements on one hand, and things or facts on the other.\n\nHistory \nCorrespondence theory is a traditional model which goes back at least to some of the ancient Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle. This class of theories holds that the truth or the falsity of a representation is determined solely by how it relates to a reality; that is, by whether it accurately describes that reality. As Aristotle claims in his Metaphysics: \"To say that that which is, is not, and that which is not, is, is a falsehood; therefore, to say that which is, is, and that which is not, is not, is true\".\n\nA classic example of correspondence theory is the statement by the medieval philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas: \"Veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus\" (\"Truth is the adequation of things and intellect\"), which Aquinas attributed to the ninth-century Neoplatonist Isaac Israeli.\n\nCorrespondence theory was either explicitly or implicitly embraced by most of the early modern thinkers, including René Descartes, Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. (However, Spinoza and Kant have also been interpreted as defenders of the coherence theory of truth.) Correspondence theory has also been attributed to Thomas Reid.\n\nIn late modern philosophy, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling espoused the correspondence theory. According to Bhikhu Parekh, Karl Marx also subscribed to a version of the correspondence theory.\n\nIn contemporary Continental philosophy, Edmund Husserl defended the correspondence theory. In contemporary analytic philosophy, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein (at least in his early period), J. L. Austin, and Karl Popper defended the correspondence theory.\n\nVarieties\n\nCorrespondence as congruence \nBertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein have in different ways suggested that a statement, to be true, must have some kind of structural isomorphism with the state of affairs in the world that makes it true. For example, \"A cat is on a mat\" is true if, and only if, there is in the world a cat and a mat and the cat is related to the mat by virtue of being on it. If any of the three pieces (the cat, the mat, and the relation between them which correspond respectively to the subject, object, and verb of the statement) is missing, the statement is false. Some sentences pose difficulties for this model, however. As just one example, adjectives such as \"counterfeit\", \"alleged\", or \"false\" do not have the usual simple meaning of restricting the meaning of the noun they modify: a \"tall lawyer\" is a kind of lawyer, but an \"alleged lawyer\" may not be.\n\nCorrespondence as correlation \nJ. L. Austin theorized that there need not be any structural parallelism between a true statement and the state of affairs that makes it true. It is only necessary that the semantics of the language in which the statement is expressed are such as to correlate whole-for-whole the statement with the state of affairs. A false statement, for Austin, is one that is correlated by the language to a state of affairs that does not exist.\n\nRelation to ontology \nHistorically, most advocates of correspondence theories have been metaphysical realists; that is, they believe that there is a world external to the minds of all humans. This is in contrast to metaphysical idealists who hold that everything that exists, exists as a substantial metaphysical entity independently of the individual thing of which it is predicated, and also to conceptualists who hold that everything that exists is, in the end, just an idea in some mind. However, it is not strictly necessary that a correspondence theory be married to metaphysical realism. It is possible to hold, for example, that the facts of the world determine which statements are true and to also hold that the world (and its facts) is but a collection of ideas in the mind of some supreme being.\n\nObjections \nOne attack on the theory claims that the correspondence theory succeeds in its appeal to the real world only in so far as the real world is reachable by us.\n\nThe direct realist believes that we directly know objects as they are. Such a person can wholeheartedly adopt a correspondence theory of truth.\n\nThe rigorous idealist believes that there are no real, mind-independent objects. The correspondence theory appeals to imaginary undefined entities, so it is incoherent.\n\nOther positions hold that we have some type of awareness, perception, etc. of real-world objects which in some way falls short of direct knowledge of them. But such an indirect awareness or perception is itself an idea in one's mind, so that the correspondence theory of truth reduces to a correspondence between ideas about truth and ideas of the world, whereupon it becomes a coherence theory of truth.\n\nVagueness or circularity \nEither the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers some accompanying theory of the world, or they do not.\n\nIf no theory of the world is offered, the argument is so vague as to be useless or even unintelligible: truth would then be supposed to be correspondence to some undefined, unknown or ineffable world.\nIt is difficult to see how a candid truth could be more certain than the world we are to judge its degree of correspondence against.\n\nOn the other hand, as soon as the defender of the correspondence theory of truth offers a theory of the world, they are operating in some specific ontological or scientific theory, which stands in need of justification.\nBut the only way to support the truth of this theory of the world that is allowed by the correspondence theory of truth is correspondence to the real world. Hence the argument is circular.\n\nSee also\n\n Belief\n Deep image\n Information\n Inquiry\n Knowledge\n Pragmatism\n Pragmaticism\n Pragmatic maxim\n Reproducibility\n Scientific method\n Testability\n Truthmaker\n Verificationism\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n Hanna, Patricia and Harrison, Bernard (2004). Word and World: Practices and the Foundation of Language, Cambridge University Press.\n Kirkham, Richard L. (1992), Theories of Truth: A Critical Introduction, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.\n Bertrand Russell (1912), The Problems of Philosophy, Oxford University Press, Oxford.\n Michael Williams (1977), Groundless Belief, Basil Blackwell, Oxford.\n\nExternal links\nThe Correspondence Theory of Truth (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)\n\nTheories of truth\nAnalytic philosophy",
"The correspondence problem refers to the problem of ascertaining which parts of one image correspond to which parts of another image, where differences are due to movement of the camera, the elapse of time, and/or movement of objects in the photos. \n\nCorrespondence is a fundamental problem in computer vision — influential computer vision researcher Takeo Kanade famously once said that the three fundamental problems of computer vision are: “Correspondence, correspondence, and correspondence!” Indeed, correspondence is arguably the key building block in many related applications: optical flow (in which the two images are subsequent in time), dense stereo vision (in which two images are from a stereo camera pair), structure from motion (SfM) and visual SLAM (in which images are from different but partially overlapping views of a scene), and cross-scene correspondence (in which images are from different scenes entirely).\n\nOverview\nGiven two or more images of the same 3D scene, taken from different points of view, the correspondence problem refers to the task of finding a set of points in one image which can be identified as the same points in another image. To do this, points or features in one image are matched with the points or features in another image, thus establishing corresponding points or corresponding features, also known as homologous points or homologous features. The images can be taken from a different point of view, at different times, or with objects in the scene in general motion relative to the camera(s).\n\nThe correspondence problem can occur in a stereo situation when two images of the same scene are used, or can be generalised to the N-view correspondence problem. In the latter case, the images may come from either N different cameras photographing at the same time or from one camera which is moving relative to the scene. The problem is made more difficult when the objects in the scene are in motion relative to the camera(s).\n\nA typical application of the correspondence problem occurs in panorama creation or image stitching — when two or more images which only have a small overlap are to be stitched into a larger composite image. In this case it is necessary to be able to identify a set of corresponding points in a pair of images in order to calculate the transformation of one image to stitch it onto the other image.\n\nBasic methods\n\nThere are two basic ways to find the correspondences between two images.\n\nCorrelation-based – checking if one location in one image looks/seems like another in another image.\n\nFeature-based – finding features in the image and seeing if the layout of a subset of features is similar in the two images. To avoid the aperture problem a good feature should have local variation in two directions.\n\nUse\nIn computer vision the correspondence problem is studied for the case when a computer should solve it automatically with only images as input. Once the correspondence problem has been solved, resulting in a set of image points which are in correspondence, other methods can be applied to this set to reconstruct the position, motion and/or rotation of the corresponding 3D points in the scene.\n\nThe correspondence problem is also the basis of the particle image velocimetry measurement technique, which is nowadays widely used in the fluid mechanics field to quantitatively measure fluid motion.\n\nSimple example\nTo find the correspondence between set A [1,2,3,4,5] and set B [3,4,5,6,7] find where they overlap and how far off one set is from the other. Here we see that the last three numbers in set A correspond with the first three numbers in set B. This shows that B is offset 2 to the left of A.\n\nSimple correlation-based example\nA simple method is to compare small patches between rectified images. This works best with images taken with roughly the same point of view and either at the same time or with little to no movement of the scene between image captures, such as stereo images.\n\nA small window is passed over a number of positions in one image. Each position is checked to see how well it compares with the same location in the other image. Several nearby locations are compared for objects in one image which may not be at exactly the same image-location in the other image. It is possible that there is no fit that is good enough. This may mean that the feature is not present in both images, it has moved farther than your search accounted for, it has changed too much, or is being hidden by other parts of the image.\n\nSee also\nStereoscopy\nParallax\nPhotogrammetry\nDepth perception\nStereopsis\nComputer vision\nFundamental matrix\nJoint compatibility branch and bound algorithm\nEpipolar geometry\nImage registration\nBirchfield–Tomasi dissimilarity\nScale-invariant feature transform (SIFT)\n\nReferences\nD. Scharstein and R. Szeliski. A Taxonomy and Evaluation of Dense Two-Frame Stereo Correspondence Algorithms. (PDF)\n\nExternal links\nMiddlebury Stereo Vision page\n\nGeometry in computer vision\nStereoscopy\n\nzh:图像对应问题"
] |
[
"Georg Cantor",
"One-to-one correspondence",
"What is one-to-one correspondence?",
"He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment."
] | C_002fb3e375d742f8ae31096aef44fc19_0 | What year was he doing his work on this? | 2 | What year was Georg Cantor doing his work on one-to-one correspondence? | Georg Cantor | Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas!" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension. In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one. This paper displeased Kronecker, and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle. CANNOTANSWER | In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence | Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( , ; – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.
Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran Christian, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. It is important to note that not all theologians were against Cantor's theory, prominent neo-scholastic philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of it and Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin accepted it as a valid theory (after Cantor made some important clarifications).
The objections to Cantor's work were occasionally fierce: Leopold Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth". Kronecker objected to Cantor's proofs that the algebraic numbers are countable, and that the transcendental numbers are uncountable, results now included in a standard mathematics curriculum. Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory", which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder.
The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by declaring, "No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created."
Life of Georg Cantor
Youth and studies
Georg Cantor was born in 1845 in the western merchant colony of Saint Petersburg, Russia, and brought up in the city until he was eleven. Cantor, the oldest of six children, was regarded as an outstanding violinist. His grandfather Franz Böhm (1788–1846) (the violinist Joseph Böhm's brother) was a well-known musician and soloist in a Russian imperial orchestra. Cantor's father had been a member of the Saint Petersburg stock exchange; when he became ill, the family moved to Germany in 1856, first to Wiesbaden, then to Frankfurt, seeking milder winters than those of Saint Petersburg. In 1860, Cantor graduated with distinction from the Realschule in Darmstadt; his exceptional skills in mathematics, trigonometry in particular, were noted. In August 1862, he then graduated from the "Höhere Gewerbeschule Darmstadt", now the Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 1862, Cantor entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. After receiving a substantial inheritance upon his father's death in June 1863, Cantor shifted his studies to the University of Berlin, attending lectures by Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass and Ernst Kummer. He spent the summer of 1866 at the University of Göttingen, then and later a center for mathematical research. Cantor was a good student, and he received his doctorate degree in 1867.
Teacher and researcher
Cantor submitted his dissertation on number theory at the University of Berlin in 1867. After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor took up a position at the University of Halle, where he spent his entire career. He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment at Halle University.
In 1874, Cantor married Vally Guttmann. They had six children, the last (Rudolph) born in 1886. Cantor was able to support a family despite modest academic pay, thanks to his inheritance from his father. During his honeymoon in the Harz mountains, Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard Dedekind, whom he had met two years earlier while on Swiss holiday.
Cantor was promoted to extraordinary professor in 1872 and made full professor in 1879. To attain the latter rank at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a chair at a more prestigious university, in particular at Berlin, at that time the leading German university. However, his work encountered too much opposition for that to be possible. Kronecker, who headed mathematics at Berlin until his death in 1891, became increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of having Cantor as a colleague, perceiving him as a "corrupter of youth" for teaching his ideas to a younger generation of mathematicians. Worse yet, Kronecker, a well-established figure within the mathematical community and Cantor's former professor, disagreed fundamentally with the thrust of Cantor's work ever since he intentionally delayed the publication of Cantor's first major publication in 1874. Kronecker, now seen as one of the founders of the constructive viewpoint in mathematics, disliked much of Cantor's set theory because it asserted the existence of sets satisfying certain properties, without giving specific examples of sets whose members did indeed satisfy those properties. Whenever Cantor applied for a post in Berlin, he was declined, and it usually involved Kronecker, so Cantor came to believe that Kronecker's stance would make it impossible for him ever to leave Halle.
In 1881, Cantor's Halle colleague Eduard Heine died, creating a vacant chair. Halle accepted Cantor's suggestion that it be offered to Dedekind, Heinrich M. Weber and Franz Mertens, in that order, but each declined the chair after being offered it. Friedrich Wangerin was eventually appointed, but he was never close to Cantor.
In 1882, the mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind came to an end, apparently as a result of Dedekind's declining the chair at Halle. Cantor also began another important correspondence, with Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Sweden, and soon began to publish in Mittag-Leffler's journal Acta Mathematica. But in 1885, Mittag-Leffler was concerned about the philosophical nature and new terminology in a paper Cantor had submitted to Acta. He asked Cantor to withdraw the paper from Acta while it was in proof, writing that it was "... about one hundred years too soon." Cantor complied, but then curtailed his relationship and correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, writing to a third party, "Had Mittag-Leffler had his way, I should have to wait until the year 1984, which to me seemed too great a demand! ... But of course I never want to know anything again about Acta Mathematica."
Cantor suffered his first known bout of depression in May 1884. Criticism of his work weighed on his mind: every one of the fifty-two letters he wrote to Mittag-Leffler in 1884 mentioned Kronecker. A passage from one of these letters is revealing of the damage to Cantor's self-confidence:
This crisis led him to apply to lecture on philosophy rather than mathematics. He also began an intense study of Elizabethan literature thinking there might be evidence that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship question); this ultimately resulted in two pamphlets, published in 1896 and 1897.
Cantor recovered soon thereafter, and subsequently made further important contributions, including his diagonal argument and theorem. However, he never again attained the high level of his remarkable papers of 1874–84, even after Kronecker's death on December 29, 1891. He eventually sought, and achieved, a reconciliation with Kronecker. Nevertheless, the philosophical disagreements and difficulties dividing them persisted.
In 1889, Cantor was instrumental in founding the German Mathematical Society and chaired its first meeting in Halle in 1891, where he first introduced his diagonal argument; his reputation was strong enough, despite Kronecker's opposition to his work, to ensure he was elected as the first president of this society. Setting aside the animosity Kronecker had displayed towards him, Cantor invited him to address the meeting, but Kronecker was unable to do so because his wife was dying from injuries sustained in a skiing accident at the time. Georg Cantor was also instrumental in the establishment of the first International Congress of Mathematicians, which was held in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1897.
Later years and death
After Cantor's 1884 hospitalization, there is no record that he was in any sanatorium again until 1899. Soon after that second hospitalization, Cantor's youngest son Rudolph died suddenly on December 16 (Cantor was delivering a lecture on his views on Baconian theory and William Shakespeare), and this tragedy drained Cantor of much of his passion for mathematics. Cantor was again hospitalized in 1903. One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The paper attempted to prove that the basic tenets of transfinite set theory were false. Since the paper had been read in front of his daughters and colleagues, Cantor perceived himself as having been publicly humiliated. Although Ernst Zermelo demonstrated less than a day later that König's proof had failed, Cantor remained shaken, and momentarily questioning God. Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria. The events of 1904 preceded a series of hospitalizations at intervals of two or three years. He did not abandon mathematics completely, however, lecturing on the paradoxes of set theory (Burali-Forti paradox, Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox) to a meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in 1903, and attending the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in 1904.
In 1911, Cantor was one of the distinguished foreign scholars invited to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Cantor attended, hoping to meet Bertrand Russell, whose newly published Principia Mathematica repeatedly cited Cantor's work, but this did not come about. The following year, St. Andrews awarded Cantor an honorary doctorate, but illness precluded his receiving the degree in person.
Cantor retired in 1913, living in poverty and suffering from malnourishment during World War I. The public celebration of his 70th birthday was canceled because of the war. In June 1917, he entered a sanatorium for the last time and continually wrote to his wife asking to be allowed to go home. Georg Cantor had a fatal heart attack on January 6, 1918, in the sanatorium where he had spent the last year of his life.
Mathematical work
Cantor's work between 1874 and 1884 is the origin of set theory. Prior to this work, the concept of a set was a rather elementary one that had been used implicitly since the beginning of mathematics, dating back to the ideas of Aristotle. No one had realized that set theory had any nontrivial content. Before Cantor, there were only finite sets (which are easy to understand) and "the infinite" (which was considered a topic for philosophical, rather than mathematical, discussion). By proving that there are (infinitely) many possible sizes for infinite sets, Cantor established that set theory was not trivial, and it needed to be studied. Set theory has come to play the role of a foundational theory in modern mathematics, in the sense that it interprets propositions about mathematical objects (for example, numbers and functions) from all the traditional areas of mathematics (such as algebra, analysis and topology) in a single theory, and provides a standard set of axioms to prove or disprove them. The basic concepts of set theory are now used throughout mathematics.
In one of his earliest papers, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is "more numerous" than the set of natural numbers; this showed, for the first time, that there exist infinite sets of different sizes. He was also the first to appreciate the importance of one-to-one correspondences (hereinafter denoted "1-to-1 correspondence") in set theory. He used this concept to define finite and infinite sets, subdividing the latter into denumerable (or countably infinite) sets and nondenumerable sets (uncountably infinite sets).
Cantor developed important concepts in topology and their relation to cardinality. For example, he showed that the Cantor set, discovered by Henry John Stephen Smith in 1875, is nowhere dense, but has the same cardinality as the set of all real numbers, whereas the rationals are everywhere dense, but countable. He also showed that all countable dense linear orders without end points are order-isomorphic to the rational numbers.
Cantor introduced fundamental constructions in set theory, such as the power set of a set A, which is the set of all possible subsets of A. He later proved that the size of the power set of A is strictly larger than the size of A, even when A is an infinite set; this result soon became known as Cantor's theorem. Cantor developed an entire theory and arithmetic of infinite sets, called cardinals and ordinals, which extended the arithmetic of the natural numbers. His notation for the cardinal numbers was the Hebrew letter (aleph) with a natural number subscript; for the ordinals he employed the Greek letter ω (omega). This notation is still in use today.
The Continuum hypothesis, introduced by Cantor, was presented by David Hilbert as the first of his twenty-three open problems in his address at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. Cantor's work also attracted favorable notice beyond Hilbert's celebrated encomium. The US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce praised Cantor's set theory and, following public lectures delivered by Cantor at the first International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897, Adolf Hurwitz and Jacques Hadamard also both expressed their admiration. At that Congress, Cantor renewed his friendship and correspondence with Dedekind. From 1905, Cantor corresponded with his British admirer and translator Philip Jourdain on the history of set theory and on Cantor's religious ideas. This was later published, as were several of his expository works.
Number theory, trigonometric series and ordinals
Cantor's first ten papers were on number theory, his thesis topic. At the suggestion of Eduard Heine, the Professor at Halle, Cantor turned to analysis. Heine proposed that Cantor solve an open problem that had eluded Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Rudolf Lipschitz, Bernhard Riemann, and Heine himself: the uniqueness of the representation of a function by trigonometric series. Cantor solved this problem in 1869. It was while working on this problem that he discovered transfinite ordinals, which occurred as indices n in the nth derived set Sn of a set S of zeros of a trigonometric series. Given a trigonometric series f(x) with S as its set of zeros, Cantor had discovered a procedure that produced another trigonometric series that had S1 as its set of zeros, where S1 is the set of limit points of S. If Sk+1 is the set of limit points of Sk, then he could construct a trigonometric series whose zeros are Sk+1. Because the sets Sk were closed, they contained their limit points, and the intersection of the infinite decreasing sequence of sets S, S1, S2, S3,... formed a limit set, which we would now call Sω, and then he noticed that Sω would also have to have a set of limit points Sω+1, and so on. He had examples that went on forever, and so here was a naturally occurring infinite sequence of infinite numbers ω, ω + 1, ω + 2, ...
Between 1870 and 1872, Cantor published more papers on trigonometric series, and also a paper defining irrational numbers as convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind, whom Cantor befriended in 1872, cited this paper later that year, in the paper where he first set out his celebrated definition of real numbers by Dedekind cuts. While extending the notion of number by means of his revolutionary concept of infinite cardinality, Cantor was paradoxically opposed to theories of infinitesimals of his contemporaries Otto Stolz and Paul du Bois-Reymond, describing them as both "an abomination" and "a cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor also published an erroneous "proof" of the inconsistency of infinitesimals.
Set theory
The beginning of set theory as a branch of mathematics is often marked by the publication of Cantor's 1874 paper, "Ueber eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"). This paper was the first to provide a rigorous proof that there was more than one kind of infinity. Previously, all infinite collections had been implicitly assumed to be equinumerous (that is, of "the same size" or having the same number of elements). Cantor proved that the collection of real numbers and the collection of positive integers are not equinumerous. In other words, the real numbers are not countable. His proof differs from the diagonal argument that he gave in 1891. Cantor's article also contains a new method of constructing transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers were first constructed by Joseph Liouville in 1844.
Cantor established these results using two constructions. His first construction shows how to write the real algebraic numbers as a sequence a1, a2, a3, .... In other words, the real algebraic numbers are countable. Cantor starts his second construction with any sequence of real numbers. Using this sequence, he constructs nested intervals whose intersection contains a real number not in the sequence. Since every sequence of real numbers can be used to construct a real not in the sequence, the real numbers cannot be written as a sequence – that is, the real numbers are not countable. By applying his construction to the sequence of real algebraic numbers, Cantor produces a transcendental number. Cantor points out that his constructions prove more – namely, they provide a new proof of Liouville's theorem: Every interval contains infinitely many transcendental numbers. Cantor's next article contains a construction that proves the set of transcendental numbers has the same "power" (see below) as the set of real numbers.
Between 1879 and 1884, Cantor published a series of six articles in Mathematische Annalen that together formed an introduction to his set theory. At the same time, there was growing opposition to Cantor's ideas, led by Leopold Kronecker, who admitted mathematical concepts only if they could be constructed in a finite number of steps from the natural numbers, which he took as intuitively given. For Kronecker, Cantor's hierarchy of infinities was inadmissible, since accepting the concept of actual infinity would open the door to paradoxes which would challenge the validity of mathematics as a whole. Cantor also introduced the Cantor set during this period.
The fifth paper in this series, "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre" ("Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates"), published in 1883, was the most important of the six and was also published as a separate monograph. It contained Cantor's reply to his critics and showed how the transfinite numbers were a systematic extension of the natural numbers. It begins by defining well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers are then introduced as the order types of well-ordered sets. Cantor then defines the addition and multiplication of the cardinal and ordinal numbers. In 1885, Cantor extended his theory of order types so that the ordinal numbers simply became a special case of order types.
In 1891, he published a paper containing his elegant "diagonal argument" for the existence of an uncountable set. He applied the same idea to prove Cantor's theorem: the cardinality of the power set of a set A is strictly larger than the cardinality of A. This established the richness of the hierarchy of infinite sets, and of the cardinal and ordinal arithmetic that Cantor had defined. His argument is fundamental in the solution of the Halting problem and the proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. Cantor wrote on the Goldbach conjecture in 1894.
In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published a two-part paper in Mathematische Annalen under Felix Klein's editorship; these were his last significant papers on set theory. The first paper begins by defining set, subset, etc., in ways that would be largely acceptable now. The cardinal and ordinal arithmetic are reviewed. Cantor wanted the second paper to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis, but had to settle for expositing his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. Cantor attempts to prove that if A and B are sets with A equivalent to a subset of B and B equivalent to a subset of A, then A and B are equivalent. Ernst Schröder had stated this theorem a bit earlier, but his proof, as well as Cantor's, was flawed. Felix Bernstein supplied a correct proof in his 1898 PhD thesis; hence the name Cantor–Bernstein–Schröder theorem.
One-to-one correspondence
Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension.
In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one.
This paper displeased Kronecker and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Karl Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle.
Continuum hypothesis
Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is exactly aleph-one, rather than just at least aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety.
The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Kurt Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can be neither proved nor disproved using standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (the combination referred to as "ZFC").
Absolute infinite, well-ordering theorem, and paradoxes
In 1883, Cantor divided the infinite into the transfinite and the absolute.
The transfinite is increasable in magnitude, while the absolute is unincreasable. For example, an ordinal α is transfinite because it can be increased to α + 1. On the other hand, the ordinals form an absolutely infinite sequence that cannot be increased in magnitude because there are no larger ordinals to add to it. In 1883, Cantor also introduced the well-ordering principle "every set can be well-ordered" and stated that it is a "law of thought".
Cantor extended his work on the absolute infinite by using it in a proof. Around 1895, he began to regard his well-ordering principle as a theorem and attempted to prove it. In 1899, he sent Dedekind a proof of the equivalent aleph theorem: the cardinality of every infinite set is an aleph. First, he defined two types of multiplicities: consistent multiplicities (sets) and inconsistent multiplicities (absolutely infinite multiplicities). Next he assumed that the ordinals form a set, proved that this leads to a contradiction, and concluded that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. He used this inconsistent multiplicity to prove the aleph theorem. In 1932, Zermelo criticized the construction in Cantor's proof.
Cantor avoided paradoxes by recognizing that there are two types of multiplicities. In his set theory, when it is assumed that the ordinals form a set, the resulting contradiction implies only that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. In contrast, Bertrand Russell treated all collections as sets, which leads to paradoxes. In Russell's set theory, the ordinals form a set, so the resulting contradiction implies that the theory is inconsistent. From 1901 to 1903, Russell discovered three paradoxes implying that his set theory is inconsistent: the Burali-Forti paradox (which was just mentioned), Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox. Russell named paradoxes after Cesare Burali-Forti and Cantor even though neither of them believed that they had found paradoxes.
In 1908, Zermelo published his axiom system for set theory. He had two motivations for developing the axiom system: eliminating the paradoxes and securing his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Zermelo had proved this theorem in 1904 using the axiom of choice, but his proof was criticized for a variety of reasons. His response to the criticism included his axiom system and a new proof of the well-ordering theorem. His axioms support this new proof, and they eliminate the paradoxes by restricting the formation of sets.
In 1923, John von Neumann developed an axiom system that eliminates the paradoxes by using an approach similar to Cantor's—namely, by identifying collections that are not sets and treating them differently. Von Neumann stated that a class is too big to be a set if it can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the class of all sets. He defined a set as a class that is a member of some class and stated the axiom: A class is not a set if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between it and the class of all sets. This axiom implies that these big classes are not sets, which eliminates the paradoxes since they cannot be members of any class. Von Neumann also used his axiom to prove the well-ordering theorem: Like Cantor, he assumed that the ordinals form a set. The resulting contradiction implies that the class of all ordinals is not a set. Then his axiom provides a one-to-one correspondence between this class and the class of all sets. This correspondence well-orders the class of all sets, which implies the well-ordering theorem. In 1930, Zermelo defined models of set theory that satisfy von Neumann's axiom.
Philosophy, religion, literature and Cantor's mathematics
The concept of the existence of an actual infinity was an important shared concern within the realms of mathematics, philosophy and religion. Preserving the orthodoxy of the relationship between God and mathematics, although not in the same form as held by his critics, was long a concern of Cantor's. He directly addressed this intersection between these disciplines in the introduction to his Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre, where he stressed the connection between his view of the infinite and the philosophical one. To Cantor, his mathematical views were intrinsically linked to their philosophical and theological implications – he identified the Absolute Infinite with God, and he considered his work on transfinite numbers to have been directly communicated to him by God, who had chosen Cantor to reveal them to the world. He was a devout Lutheran whose explicit Christian beliefs shaped his philosophy of science. Joseph Dauben has traced the effect Cantor's Christian convictions had on the development of transfinite set theory.
Debate among mathematicians grew out of opposing views in the philosophy of mathematics regarding the nature of actual infinity. Some held to the view that infinity was an abstraction which was not mathematically legitimate, and denied its existence. Mathematicians from three major schools of thought (constructivism and its two offshoots, intuitionism and finitism) opposed Cantor's theories in this matter. For constructivists such as Kronecker, this rejection of actual infinity stems from fundamental disagreement with the idea that nonconstructive proofs such as Cantor's diagonal argument are sufficient proof that something exists, holding instead that constructive proofs are required. Intuitionism also rejects the idea that actual infinity is an expression of any sort of reality, but arrive at the decision via a different route than constructivism. Firstly, Cantor's argument rests on logic to prove the existence of transfinite numbers as an actual mathematical entity, whereas intuitionists hold that mathematical entities cannot be reduced to logical propositions, originating instead in the intuitions of the mind. Secondly, the notion of infinity as an expression of reality is itself disallowed in intuitionism, since the human mind cannot intuitively construct an infinite set. Mathematicians such as L. E. J. Brouwer and especially Henri Poincaré adopted an intuitionist stance against Cantor's work. Finally, Wittgenstein's attacks were finitist: he believed that Cantor's diagonal argument conflated the intension of a set of cardinal or real numbers with its extension, thus conflating the concept of rules for generating a set with an actual set.
Some Christian theologians saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God. In particular, neo-Thomist thinkers saw the existence of an actual infinity that consisted of something other than God as jeopardizing "God's exclusive claim to supreme infinity". Cantor strongly believed that this view was a misinterpretation of infinity, and was convinced that set theory could help correct this mistake: "... the transfinite species are just as much at the disposal of the intentions of the Creator and His absolute boundless will as are the finite numbers.". It is to note that prominent neo-scholastic german philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of such theory, holding that it didn't oppose the nature of God.
Cantor also believed that his theory of transfinite numbers ran counter to both materialism and determinism – and was shocked when he realized that he was the only faculty member at Halle who did not hold to deterministic philosophical beliefs.
It was important to Cantor that his philosophy provided an "organic explanation" of nature, and in his 1883 Grundlagen, he said that such an explanation could only come about by drawing on the resources of the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz. In making these claims, Cantor may have been influenced by FA Trendelenburg, whose lecture courses he attended at Berlin, and in turn Cantor produced a Latin commentary on Book 1 of Spinoza's Ethica. FA Trendelenburg was also the examiner of Cantor's Habilitationsschrift.
In 1888, Cantor published his correspondence with several philosophers on the philosophical implications of his set theory. In an extensive attempt to persuade other Christian thinkers and authorities to adopt his views, Cantor had corresponded with Christian philosophers such as Tilman Pesch and Joseph Hontheim, as well as theologians such as Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin, who once replied by equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Although later this Cardinal accepted the theory as valid, due to some clarifications from Cantor's. Cantor even sent one letter directly to Pope Leo XIII himself, and addressed several pamphlets to him.
Cantor's philosophy on the nature of numbers led him to affirm a belief in the freedom of mathematics to posit and prove concepts apart from the realm of physical phenomena, as expressions within an internal reality. The only restrictions on this metaphysical system are that all mathematical concepts must be devoid of internal contradiction, and that they follow from existing definitions, axioms, and theorems. This belief is summarized in his assertion that "the essence of mathematics is its freedom." These ideas parallel those of Edmund Husserl, whom Cantor had met in Halle.
Meanwhile, Cantor himself was fiercely opposed to infinitesimals, describing them as both an "abomination" and "the cholera bacillus of mathematics".
Cantor's 1883 paper reveals that he was well aware of the opposition his ideas were encountering: "... I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers."
Hence he devotes much space to justifying his earlier work, asserting that mathematical concepts may be freely introduced as long as they are free of contradiction and defined in terms of previously accepted concepts. He also cites Aristotle, René Descartes, George Berkeley, Gottfried Leibniz, and Bernard Bolzano on infinity. Instead, he always strongly rejected Kant's philosophy, in the realms of both the philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. He shared B. Russell's motto "Kant or Cantor", and defined Kant "yonder sophistical Philistine who knew so little mathematics."
Cantor's ancestry
Cantor's paternal grandparents were from Copenhagen and fled to Russia from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. There is very little direct information on them. Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was educated in the Lutheran mission in Saint Petersburg, and his correspondence with his son shows both of them as devout Lutherans. Very little is known for sure about Georg Waldemar's origin or education. Cantor's mother, Maria Anna Böhm, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Saint Petersburg and baptized Roman Catholic; she converted to Protestantism upon marriage. However, there is a letter from Cantor's brother Louis to their mother, stating:
("Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians...") which could be read to imply that she was of Jewish ancestry.
According to biographers Eric Temple Bell, Cantor was of Jewish descent, although both parents were baptized. In a 1971 article entitled "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor", the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions (Annals of Science 27, pp. 345–391, 1971) that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry. (He also states that Cantor's wife, Vally Guttmann, was Jewish).
In a letter written to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen. Specifically, Cantor states in describing his father: "Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde...." ("He was born in Copenhagen of Jewish (lit: 'Israelite') parents from the local Portuguese-Jewish community.")
In addition, Cantor's maternal great uncle, a Hungarian violinist Josef Böhm, has been described as Jewish, which may imply that Cantor's mother was at least partly descended from the Hungarian Jewish community.
In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Cantor described his ancestry and self-perception as follows:
There were documented statements, during the 1930s, that called this Jewish ancestry into question:
Biographies
Until the 1970s, the chief academic publications on Cantor were two short monographs by Arthur Moritz Schönflies (1927) – largely the correspondence with Mittag-Leffler – and Fraenkel (1930). Both were at second and third hand; neither had much on his personal life. The gap was largely filled by Eric Temple Bell's Men of Mathematics (1937), which one of Cantor's modern biographers describes as "perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics"; and as "one of the worst". Bell presents Cantor's relationship with his father as Oedipal, Cantor's differences with Kronecker as a quarrel between two Jews, and Cantor's madness as Romantic despair over his failure to win acceptance for his mathematics. Grattan-Guinness (1971) found that none of these claims were true, but they may be found in many books of the intervening period, owing to the absence of any other narrative. There are other legends, independent of Bell – including one that labels Cantor's father a foundling, shipped to Saint Petersburg by unknown parents. A critique of Bell's book is contained in Joseph Dauben's biography. Writes Dauben:
See also
Absolute Infinite
Aleph number
Cardinality of the continuum
Cantor algebra
Cantor cube
Cantor distribution
Cantor function
Cantor medal – award by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in honor of Georg Cantor
Cantor normal form theorem
Cantor space
Cantor tree surface
Cantor's back-and-forth method
Cantor's diagonal argument
Cantor's intersection theorem
Cantor's isomorphism theorem
Cantor's first set theory article
Cantor's paradox
Cantor's theorem
Cantor's leaky tent
Cantor–Bendixson theorem
Cantor–Dedekind axiom
Cantor–Schröder–Bernstein
Cantor–Bernstein theorem
Cantor set
Cardinal number
Continuum hypothesis
Countable set
Derived set (mathematics)
Epsilon numbers (mathematics)
Factorial number system
Heine–Cantor theorem
Pairing function
Smith–Volterra–Cantor set
Transfinite number
Notes
References
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Internet version published in Journal of the ACMS 2004. Note, though, that Cantor's Latin quotation described in this article as a familiar passage from the Bible is actually from the works of Seneca and has no implication of divine revelation.
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. Although the presentation is axiomatic rather than naive, Suppes proves and discusses many of Cantor's results, which demonstrates Cantor's continued importance for the edifice of foundational mathematics.
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Bibliography
Older sources on Cantor's life should be treated with caution. See section § Biographies above.
Primary literature in English
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Primary literature in German
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Published separately as: Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre.
. Almost everything that Cantor wrote. Includes excerpts of his correspondence with Dedekind (p. 443–451) and Fraenkel's Cantor biography (p. 452–483) in the appendix.
Secondary literature
. . A popular treatment of infinity, in which Cantor is frequently mentioned.
. Contains a detailed treatment of both Cantor's and Dedekind's contributions to set theory.
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. Three chapters and 18 index entries on Cantor.
Newstead, Anne (2009). "Cantor on Infinity in Nature, Number, and the Divine Mind", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 83 (4): 532–553, https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq200983444. With acknowledgement of Dauben's pioneering historical work, this article further discusses Cantor's relation to the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz in depth, and his engagement in the Pantheismusstreit. Brief mention is made of Cantor's learning from F.A.Trendelenburg.
. Chapter 16 illustrates how Cantorian thinking intrigues a leading contemporary theoretical physicist.
. Deals with similar topics to Aczel, but in more depth.
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Leonida Lazzari, L'infinito di Cantor. Editrice Pitagora, Bologna, 2008.
External links
Mainly devoted to Cantor's accomplishment.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Set theory by Thomas Jech. The Early Development of Set Theory by José Ferreirós.
"Cantor infinities", analysis of Cantor's 1874 article, BibNum (for English version, click 'à télécharger'). There is an error in this analysis. It states Cantor's Theorem 1 correctly: Algebraic numbers can be counted. However, it states his Theorem 2 incorrectly: Real numbers cannot be counted. It then says: "Cantor notes that, taken together, Theorems 1 and 2 allow for the redemonstration of the existence of non-algebraic real numbers …" This existence demonstration is non-constructive. Theorem 2 stated correctly is: Given a sequence of real numbers, one can determine a real number that is not in the sequence. Taken together, Theorem 1 and this Theorem 2 produce a non-algebraic number. Cantor also used Theorem 2 to prove that the real numbers cannot be counted. See Cantor's first set theory article or Georg Cantor and Transcendental Numbers.
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Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni | true | [
"\"What You're Doing\" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their album Beatles for Sale, released in December 1964. It was written by Paul McCartney, although credited to Lennon–McCartney. The song was one of eight original compositions on Beatles for Sale. In North America, where Capitol Records typically altered the content of the band's albums, \"What You're Doing\" instead appeared on the 1965 US release Beatles VI.\n\nComposition\n\"What You're Doing\" was written by McCartney in Atlantic City on 30 August 1964, shortly following the end of the Beatles' 1964 world tour. Throughout the song, McCartney adds to the rhyme scheme by combining a single, two-syllable word with two one-syllable words (i.e. \"Look what you're doing, I'm feeling blue and lonely... You got me runnin''', and there's no fun in it\"). He used the same technique on \"She's a Woman\", which was also recorded during the Beatles for Sale sessions. Inspired by his often turbulent relationship with girlfriend Jane Asher, McCartney has gone on record as not liking \"What You're Doing\", regarding it as \"filler\".\n\nThe track features a guitar riff played by George Harrison on his Rickenbacker 12-string electric guitar. The sound was influential on the Byrds, who crafted their sound partly on the Beatles' use of the Rickenbacker, and Harrison in turn adopted influences from the Byrds in his 1965 song \"If I Needed Someone\".\n\nRecording\nThe Beatles attempted to record the song on 29 September 1964, but only the basic rhythm track was taped over seven takes (with take seven being deemed the best). A day later, after finishing the recording of \"Every Little Thing\", the group recorded five more takes, with take 11 being deemed the \"best;\" Lewisohn notes that at this point, the song differed from the final version in that \"its breaks between choruses were less tight, the middle eight instrumental break was performed an octave above the vocals and it had a 1 & 1/2 second pause preceding a reprise instrumental coda.\" The group remade the song into its final form on 26 October, immediately after completing work on the Carl Perkins-cover \"Honey Don't\". It was the last song to be completed for Beatles for Sale.\n\nSampling\nThe song was sampled to create a medley, along with \"Drive My Car\" and \"The Word\", on the band's 2006 remix album Love''. \"What You're Doing\" shares a number of characteristics with (the also predominantly McCartney-written) \"Drive My Car\", particularly the home key (D major), meter (4/4), and chord progression (alternating between B minor and G major).\n\nPersonnel\nAccording to Ian MacDonald:\n\nPaul McCartneylead vocal, bass\nJohn Lennonharmony vocal, acoustic rhythm guitar\nGeorge Harrisonharmony vocal, twelve-string lead guitar\nRingo Starrdrums\nGeorge Martinpiano\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1964 songs\nThe Beatles songs\nSongs written by Lennon–McCartney\nSong recordings produced by George Martin\nSongs published by Northern Songs\nJangle pop songs",
"\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" is a song written by Johnny Cunningham. It was recorded by American country music artist Lynn Anderson and released as a single in 1977 via Columbia Records, becoming a top 40 hit that year.\n\nBackground and release\n\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" was recorded in April 1977 at the Columbia Studio, located in Nashville, Tennessee. The sessions was produced by Glenn Sutton, Anderson's longtime production collaborator at the label and her first husband. It was co-produced by Steve Gibson, making the session Anderson's first experience under the co-production of Gibson. Nine additional tracks were recorded at this particular session, including the major hit \"He Ain't You.\"\n\n\"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" was released as a single in May 1977 via Columbia Records. The song spent ten weeks on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart before reaching number 22 in July 1977. The song was issued on Anderson's 1977 studio album I Love What Love Is Doing to Me/He Ain't You.\n\nTrack listings \n7\" vinyl single\n \"I Love What Love Is Doing to Me\" – 2:10\n \"Will I Ever Hear Those Churchbells Ring?\" – 3:32\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1977 singles\n1977 songs\nColumbia Records singles\nLynn Anderson songs\nSong recordings produced by Glenn Sutton"
] |
[
"Georg Cantor",
"One-to-one correspondence",
"What is one-to-one correspondence?",
"He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment.",
"What year was he doing his work on this?",
"In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence"
] | C_002fb3e375d742f8ae31096aef44fc19_0 | What is Crelle's Journal? | 3 | What is Crelle's Journal? | Georg Cantor | Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "Je le vois, mais je ne le crois pas!" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension. In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one. This paper displeased Kronecker, and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( , ; – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. He created set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. In fact, Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of.
Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was originally regarded as so counter-intuitive – even shocking – that it encountered resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections. Cantor, a devout Lutheran Christian, believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected. It is important to note that not all theologians were against Cantor's theory, prominent neo-scholastic philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of it and Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin accepted it as a valid theory (after Cantor made some important clarifications).
The objections to Cantor's work were occasionally fierce: Leopold Kronecker's public opposition and personal attacks included describing Cantor as a "scientific charlatan", a "renegade" and a "corrupter of youth". Kronecker objected to Cantor's proofs that the algebraic numbers are countable, and that the transcendental numbers are uncountable, results now included in a standard mathematics curriculum. Writing decades after Cantor's death, Wittgenstein lamented that mathematics is "ridden through and through with the pernicious idioms of set theory", which he dismissed as "utter nonsense" that is "laughable" and "wrong". Cantor's recurring bouts of depression from 1884 to the end of his life have been blamed on the hostile attitude of many of his contemporaries, though some have explained these episodes as probable manifestations of a bipolar disorder.
The harsh criticism has been matched by later accolades. In 1904, the Royal Society awarded Cantor its Sylvester Medal, the highest honor it can confer for work in mathematics. David Hilbert defended it from its critics by declaring, "No one shall expel us from the paradise that Cantor has created."
Life of Georg Cantor
Youth and studies
Georg Cantor was born in 1845 in the western merchant colony of Saint Petersburg, Russia, and brought up in the city until he was eleven. Cantor, the oldest of six children, was regarded as an outstanding violinist. His grandfather Franz Böhm (1788–1846) (the violinist Joseph Böhm's brother) was a well-known musician and soloist in a Russian imperial orchestra. Cantor's father had been a member of the Saint Petersburg stock exchange; when he became ill, the family moved to Germany in 1856, first to Wiesbaden, then to Frankfurt, seeking milder winters than those of Saint Petersburg. In 1860, Cantor graduated with distinction from the Realschule in Darmstadt; his exceptional skills in mathematics, trigonometry in particular, were noted. In August 1862, he then graduated from the "Höhere Gewerbeschule Darmstadt", now the Technische Universität Darmstadt. In 1862, Cantor entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. After receiving a substantial inheritance upon his father's death in June 1863, Cantor shifted his studies to the University of Berlin, attending lectures by Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass and Ernst Kummer. He spent the summer of 1866 at the University of Göttingen, then and later a center for mathematical research. Cantor was a good student, and he received his doctorate degree in 1867.
Teacher and researcher
Cantor submitted his dissertation on number theory at the University of Berlin in 1867. After teaching briefly in a Berlin girls' school, Cantor took up a position at the University of Halle, where he spent his entire career. He was awarded the requisite habilitation for his thesis, also on number theory, which he presented in 1869 upon his appointment at Halle University.
In 1874, Cantor married Vally Guttmann. They had six children, the last (Rudolph) born in 1886. Cantor was able to support a family despite modest academic pay, thanks to his inheritance from his father. During his honeymoon in the Harz mountains, Cantor spent much time in mathematical discussions with Richard Dedekind, whom he had met two years earlier while on Swiss holiday.
Cantor was promoted to extraordinary professor in 1872 and made full professor in 1879. To attain the latter rank at the age of 34 was a notable accomplishment, but Cantor desired a chair at a more prestigious university, in particular at Berlin, at that time the leading German university. However, his work encountered too much opposition for that to be possible. Kronecker, who headed mathematics at Berlin until his death in 1891, became increasingly uncomfortable with the prospect of having Cantor as a colleague, perceiving him as a "corrupter of youth" for teaching his ideas to a younger generation of mathematicians. Worse yet, Kronecker, a well-established figure within the mathematical community and Cantor's former professor, disagreed fundamentally with the thrust of Cantor's work ever since he intentionally delayed the publication of Cantor's first major publication in 1874. Kronecker, now seen as one of the founders of the constructive viewpoint in mathematics, disliked much of Cantor's set theory because it asserted the existence of sets satisfying certain properties, without giving specific examples of sets whose members did indeed satisfy those properties. Whenever Cantor applied for a post in Berlin, he was declined, and it usually involved Kronecker, so Cantor came to believe that Kronecker's stance would make it impossible for him ever to leave Halle.
In 1881, Cantor's Halle colleague Eduard Heine died, creating a vacant chair. Halle accepted Cantor's suggestion that it be offered to Dedekind, Heinrich M. Weber and Franz Mertens, in that order, but each declined the chair after being offered it. Friedrich Wangerin was eventually appointed, but he was never close to Cantor.
In 1882, the mathematical correspondence between Cantor and Dedekind came to an end, apparently as a result of Dedekind's declining the chair at Halle. Cantor also began another important correspondence, with Gösta Mittag-Leffler in Sweden, and soon began to publish in Mittag-Leffler's journal Acta Mathematica. But in 1885, Mittag-Leffler was concerned about the philosophical nature and new terminology in a paper Cantor had submitted to Acta. He asked Cantor to withdraw the paper from Acta while it was in proof, writing that it was "... about one hundred years too soon." Cantor complied, but then curtailed his relationship and correspondence with Mittag-Leffler, writing to a third party, "Had Mittag-Leffler had his way, I should have to wait until the year 1984, which to me seemed too great a demand! ... But of course I never want to know anything again about Acta Mathematica."
Cantor suffered his first known bout of depression in May 1884. Criticism of his work weighed on his mind: every one of the fifty-two letters he wrote to Mittag-Leffler in 1884 mentioned Kronecker. A passage from one of these letters is revealing of the damage to Cantor's self-confidence:
This crisis led him to apply to lecture on philosophy rather than mathematics. He also began an intense study of Elizabethan literature thinking there might be evidence that Francis Bacon wrote the plays attributed to William Shakespeare (see Shakespearean authorship question); this ultimately resulted in two pamphlets, published in 1896 and 1897.
Cantor recovered soon thereafter, and subsequently made further important contributions, including his diagonal argument and theorem. However, he never again attained the high level of his remarkable papers of 1874–84, even after Kronecker's death on December 29, 1891. He eventually sought, and achieved, a reconciliation with Kronecker. Nevertheless, the philosophical disagreements and difficulties dividing them persisted.
In 1889, Cantor was instrumental in founding the German Mathematical Society and chaired its first meeting in Halle in 1891, where he first introduced his diagonal argument; his reputation was strong enough, despite Kronecker's opposition to his work, to ensure he was elected as the first president of this society. Setting aside the animosity Kronecker had displayed towards him, Cantor invited him to address the meeting, but Kronecker was unable to do so because his wife was dying from injuries sustained in a skiing accident at the time. Georg Cantor was also instrumental in the establishment of the first International Congress of Mathematicians, which was held in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1897.
Later years and death
After Cantor's 1884 hospitalization, there is no record that he was in any sanatorium again until 1899. Soon after that second hospitalization, Cantor's youngest son Rudolph died suddenly on December 16 (Cantor was delivering a lecture on his views on Baconian theory and William Shakespeare), and this tragedy drained Cantor of much of his passion for mathematics. Cantor was again hospitalized in 1903. One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians. The paper attempted to prove that the basic tenets of transfinite set theory were false. Since the paper had been read in front of his daughters and colleagues, Cantor perceived himself as having been publicly humiliated. Although Ernst Zermelo demonstrated less than a day later that König's proof had failed, Cantor remained shaken, and momentarily questioning God. Cantor suffered from chronic depression for the rest of his life, for which he was excused from teaching on several occasions and repeatedly confined in various sanatoria. The events of 1904 preceded a series of hospitalizations at intervals of two or three years. He did not abandon mathematics completely, however, lecturing on the paradoxes of set theory (Burali-Forti paradox, Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox) to a meeting of the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in 1903, and attending the International Congress of Mathematicians at Heidelberg in 1904.
In 1911, Cantor was one of the distinguished foreign scholars invited to attend the 500th anniversary of the founding of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Cantor attended, hoping to meet Bertrand Russell, whose newly published Principia Mathematica repeatedly cited Cantor's work, but this did not come about. The following year, St. Andrews awarded Cantor an honorary doctorate, but illness precluded his receiving the degree in person.
Cantor retired in 1913, living in poverty and suffering from malnourishment during World War I. The public celebration of his 70th birthday was canceled because of the war. In June 1917, he entered a sanatorium for the last time and continually wrote to his wife asking to be allowed to go home. Georg Cantor had a fatal heart attack on January 6, 1918, in the sanatorium where he had spent the last year of his life.
Mathematical work
Cantor's work between 1874 and 1884 is the origin of set theory. Prior to this work, the concept of a set was a rather elementary one that had been used implicitly since the beginning of mathematics, dating back to the ideas of Aristotle. No one had realized that set theory had any nontrivial content. Before Cantor, there were only finite sets (which are easy to understand) and "the infinite" (which was considered a topic for philosophical, rather than mathematical, discussion). By proving that there are (infinitely) many possible sizes for infinite sets, Cantor established that set theory was not trivial, and it needed to be studied. Set theory has come to play the role of a foundational theory in modern mathematics, in the sense that it interprets propositions about mathematical objects (for example, numbers and functions) from all the traditional areas of mathematics (such as algebra, analysis and topology) in a single theory, and provides a standard set of axioms to prove or disprove them. The basic concepts of set theory are now used throughout mathematics.
In one of his earliest papers, Cantor proved that the set of real numbers is "more numerous" than the set of natural numbers; this showed, for the first time, that there exist infinite sets of different sizes. He was also the first to appreciate the importance of one-to-one correspondences (hereinafter denoted "1-to-1 correspondence") in set theory. He used this concept to define finite and infinite sets, subdividing the latter into denumerable (or countably infinite) sets and nondenumerable sets (uncountably infinite sets).
Cantor developed important concepts in topology and their relation to cardinality. For example, he showed that the Cantor set, discovered by Henry John Stephen Smith in 1875, is nowhere dense, but has the same cardinality as the set of all real numbers, whereas the rationals are everywhere dense, but countable. He also showed that all countable dense linear orders without end points are order-isomorphic to the rational numbers.
Cantor introduced fundamental constructions in set theory, such as the power set of a set A, which is the set of all possible subsets of A. He later proved that the size of the power set of A is strictly larger than the size of A, even when A is an infinite set; this result soon became known as Cantor's theorem. Cantor developed an entire theory and arithmetic of infinite sets, called cardinals and ordinals, which extended the arithmetic of the natural numbers. His notation for the cardinal numbers was the Hebrew letter (aleph) with a natural number subscript; for the ordinals he employed the Greek letter ω (omega). This notation is still in use today.
The Continuum hypothesis, introduced by Cantor, was presented by David Hilbert as the first of his twenty-three open problems in his address at the 1900 International Congress of Mathematicians in Paris. Cantor's work also attracted favorable notice beyond Hilbert's celebrated encomium. The US philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce praised Cantor's set theory and, following public lectures delivered by Cantor at the first International Congress of Mathematicians, held in Zurich in 1897, Adolf Hurwitz and Jacques Hadamard also both expressed their admiration. At that Congress, Cantor renewed his friendship and correspondence with Dedekind. From 1905, Cantor corresponded with his British admirer and translator Philip Jourdain on the history of set theory and on Cantor's religious ideas. This was later published, as were several of his expository works.
Number theory, trigonometric series and ordinals
Cantor's first ten papers were on number theory, his thesis topic. At the suggestion of Eduard Heine, the Professor at Halle, Cantor turned to analysis. Heine proposed that Cantor solve an open problem that had eluded Peter Gustav Lejeune Dirichlet, Rudolf Lipschitz, Bernhard Riemann, and Heine himself: the uniqueness of the representation of a function by trigonometric series. Cantor solved this problem in 1869. It was while working on this problem that he discovered transfinite ordinals, which occurred as indices n in the nth derived set Sn of a set S of zeros of a trigonometric series. Given a trigonometric series f(x) with S as its set of zeros, Cantor had discovered a procedure that produced another trigonometric series that had S1 as its set of zeros, where S1 is the set of limit points of S. If Sk+1 is the set of limit points of Sk, then he could construct a trigonometric series whose zeros are Sk+1. Because the sets Sk were closed, they contained their limit points, and the intersection of the infinite decreasing sequence of sets S, S1, S2, S3,... formed a limit set, which we would now call Sω, and then he noticed that Sω would also have to have a set of limit points Sω+1, and so on. He had examples that went on forever, and so here was a naturally occurring infinite sequence of infinite numbers ω, ω + 1, ω + 2, ...
Between 1870 and 1872, Cantor published more papers on trigonometric series, and also a paper defining irrational numbers as convergent sequences of rational numbers. Dedekind, whom Cantor befriended in 1872, cited this paper later that year, in the paper where he first set out his celebrated definition of real numbers by Dedekind cuts. While extending the notion of number by means of his revolutionary concept of infinite cardinality, Cantor was paradoxically opposed to theories of infinitesimals of his contemporaries Otto Stolz and Paul du Bois-Reymond, describing them as both "an abomination" and "a cholera bacillus of mathematics". Cantor also published an erroneous "proof" of the inconsistency of infinitesimals.
Set theory
The beginning of set theory as a branch of mathematics is often marked by the publication of Cantor's 1874 paper, "Ueber eine Eigenschaft des Inbegriffes aller reellen algebraischen Zahlen" ("On a Property of the Collection of All Real Algebraic Numbers"). This paper was the first to provide a rigorous proof that there was more than one kind of infinity. Previously, all infinite collections had been implicitly assumed to be equinumerous (that is, of "the same size" or having the same number of elements). Cantor proved that the collection of real numbers and the collection of positive integers are not equinumerous. In other words, the real numbers are not countable. His proof differs from the diagonal argument that he gave in 1891. Cantor's article also contains a new method of constructing transcendental numbers. Transcendental numbers were first constructed by Joseph Liouville in 1844.
Cantor established these results using two constructions. His first construction shows how to write the real algebraic numbers as a sequence a1, a2, a3, .... In other words, the real algebraic numbers are countable. Cantor starts his second construction with any sequence of real numbers. Using this sequence, he constructs nested intervals whose intersection contains a real number not in the sequence. Since every sequence of real numbers can be used to construct a real not in the sequence, the real numbers cannot be written as a sequence – that is, the real numbers are not countable. By applying his construction to the sequence of real algebraic numbers, Cantor produces a transcendental number. Cantor points out that his constructions prove more – namely, they provide a new proof of Liouville's theorem: Every interval contains infinitely many transcendental numbers. Cantor's next article contains a construction that proves the set of transcendental numbers has the same "power" (see below) as the set of real numbers.
Between 1879 and 1884, Cantor published a series of six articles in Mathematische Annalen that together formed an introduction to his set theory. At the same time, there was growing opposition to Cantor's ideas, led by Leopold Kronecker, who admitted mathematical concepts only if they could be constructed in a finite number of steps from the natural numbers, which he took as intuitively given. For Kronecker, Cantor's hierarchy of infinities was inadmissible, since accepting the concept of actual infinity would open the door to paradoxes which would challenge the validity of mathematics as a whole. Cantor also introduced the Cantor set during this period.
The fifth paper in this series, "Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre" ("Foundations of a General Theory of Aggregates"), published in 1883, was the most important of the six and was also published as a separate monograph. It contained Cantor's reply to his critics and showed how the transfinite numbers were a systematic extension of the natural numbers. It begins by defining well-ordered sets. Ordinal numbers are then introduced as the order types of well-ordered sets. Cantor then defines the addition and multiplication of the cardinal and ordinal numbers. In 1885, Cantor extended his theory of order types so that the ordinal numbers simply became a special case of order types.
In 1891, he published a paper containing his elegant "diagonal argument" for the existence of an uncountable set. He applied the same idea to prove Cantor's theorem: the cardinality of the power set of a set A is strictly larger than the cardinality of A. This established the richness of the hierarchy of infinite sets, and of the cardinal and ordinal arithmetic that Cantor had defined. His argument is fundamental in the solution of the Halting problem and the proof of Gödel's first incompleteness theorem. Cantor wrote on the Goldbach conjecture in 1894.
In 1895 and 1897, Cantor published a two-part paper in Mathematische Annalen under Felix Klein's editorship; these were his last significant papers on set theory. The first paper begins by defining set, subset, etc., in ways that would be largely acceptable now. The cardinal and ordinal arithmetic are reviewed. Cantor wanted the second paper to include a proof of the continuum hypothesis, but had to settle for expositing his theory of well-ordered sets and ordinal numbers. Cantor attempts to prove that if A and B are sets with A equivalent to a subset of B and B equivalent to a subset of A, then A and B are equivalent. Ernst Schröder had stated this theorem a bit earlier, but his proof, as well as Cantor's, was flawed. Felix Bernstein supplied a correct proof in his 1898 PhD thesis; hence the name Cantor–Bernstein–Schröder theorem.
One-to-one correspondence
Cantor's 1874 Crelle paper was the first to invoke the notion of a 1-to-1 correspondence, though he did not use that phrase. He then began looking for a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points of the unit square and the points of a unit line segment. In an 1877 letter to Richard Dedekind, Cantor proved a far stronger result: for any positive integer n, there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between the points on the unit line segment and all of the points in an n-dimensional space. About this discovery Cantor wrote to Dedekind: "" ("I see it, but I don't believe it!") The result that he found so astonishing has implications for geometry and the notion of dimension.
In 1878, Cantor submitted another paper to Crelle's Journal, in which he defined precisely the concept of a 1-to-1 correspondence and introduced the notion of "power" (a term he took from Jakob Steiner) or "equivalence" of sets: two sets are equivalent (have the same power) if there exists a 1-to-1 correspondence between them. Cantor defined countable sets (or denumerable sets) as sets which can be put into a 1-to-1 correspondence with the natural numbers, and proved that the rational numbers are denumerable. He also proved that n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn has the same power as the real numbers R, as does a countably infinite product of copies of R. While he made free use of countability as a concept, he did not write the word "countable" until 1883. Cantor also discussed his thinking about dimension, stressing that his mapping between the unit interval and the unit square was not a continuous one.
This paper displeased Kronecker and Cantor wanted to withdraw it; however, Dedekind persuaded him not to do so and Karl Weierstrass supported its publication. Nevertheless, Cantor never again submitted anything to Crelle.
Continuum hypothesis
Cantor was the first to formulate what later came to be known as the continuum hypothesis or CH: there exists no set whose power is greater than that of the naturals and less than that of the reals (or equivalently, the cardinality of the reals is exactly aleph-one, rather than just at least aleph-one). Cantor believed the continuum hypothesis to be true and tried for many years to prove it, in vain. His inability to prove the continuum hypothesis caused him considerable anxiety.
The difficulty Cantor had in proving the continuum hypothesis has been underscored by later developments in the field of mathematics: a 1940 result by Kurt Gödel and a 1963 one by Paul Cohen together imply that the continuum hypothesis can be neither proved nor disproved using standard Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory plus the axiom of choice (the combination referred to as "ZFC").
Absolute infinite, well-ordering theorem, and paradoxes
In 1883, Cantor divided the infinite into the transfinite and the absolute.
The transfinite is increasable in magnitude, while the absolute is unincreasable. For example, an ordinal α is transfinite because it can be increased to α + 1. On the other hand, the ordinals form an absolutely infinite sequence that cannot be increased in magnitude because there are no larger ordinals to add to it. In 1883, Cantor also introduced the well-ordering principle "every set can be well-ordered" and stated that it is a "law of thought".
Cantor extended his work on the absolute infinite by using it in a proof. Around 1895, he began to regard his well-ordering principle as a theorem and attempted to prove it. In 1899, he sent Dedekind a proof of the equivalent aleph theorem: the cardinality of every infinite set is an aleph. First, he defined two types of multiplicities: consistent multiplicities (sets) and inconsistent multiplicities (absolutely infinite multiplicities). Next he assumed that the ordinals form a set, proved that this leads to a contradiction, and concluded that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. He used this inconsistent multiplicity to prove the aleph theorem. In 1932, Zermelo criticized the construction in Cantor's proof.
Cantor avoided paradoxes by recognizing that there are two types of multiplicities. In his set theory, when it is assumed that the ordinals form a set, the resulting contradiction implies only that the ordinals form an inconsistent multiplicity. In contrast, Bertrand Russell treated all collections as sets, which leads to paradoxes. In Russell's set theory, the ordinals form a set, so the resulting contradiction implies that the theory is inconsistent. From 1901 to 1903, Russell discovered three paradoxes implying that his set theory is inconsistent: the Burali-Forti paradox (which was just mentioned), Cantor's paradox, and Russell's paradox. Russell named paradoxes after Cesare Burali-Forti and Cantor even though neither of them believed that they had found paradoxes.
In 1908, Zermelo published his axiom system for set theory. He had two motivations for developing the axiom system: eliminating the paradoxes and securing his proof of the well-ordering theorem. Zermelo had proved this theorem in 1904 using the axiom of choice, but his proof was criticized for a variety of reasons. His response to the criticism included his axiom system and a new proof of the well-ordering theorem. His axioms support this new proof, and they eliminate the paradoxes by restricting the formation of sets.
In 1923, John von Neumann developed an axiom system that eliminates the paradoxes by using an approach similar to Cantor's—namely, by identifying collections that are not sets and treating them differently. Von Neumann stated that a class is too big to be a set if it can be put into one-to-one correspondence with the class of all sets. He defined a set as a class that is a member of some class and stated the axiom: A class is not a set if and only if there is a one-to-one correspondence between it and the class of all sets. This axiom implies that these big classes are not sets, which eliminates the paradoxes since they cannot be members of any class. Von Neumann also used his axiom to prove the well-ordering theorem: Like Cantor, he assumed that the ordinals form a set. The resulting contradiction implies that the class of all ordinals is not a set. Then his axiom provides a one-to-one correspondence between this class and the class of all sets. This correspondence well-orders the class of all sets, which implies the well-ordering theorem. In 1930, Zermelo defined models of set theory that satisfy von Neumann's axiom.
Philosophy, religion, literature and Cantor's mathematics
The concept of the existence of an actual infinity was an important shared concern within the realms of mathematics, philosophy and religion. Preserving the orthodoxy of the relationship between God and mathematics, although not in the same form as held by his critics, was long a concern of Cantor's. He directly addressed this intersection between these disciplines in the introduction to his Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre, where he stressed the connection between his view of the infinite and the philosophical one. To Cantor, his mathematical views were intrinsically linked to their philosophical and theological implications – he identified the Absolute Infinite with God, and he considered his work on transfinite numbers to have been directly communicated to him by God, who had chosen Cantor to reveal them to the world. He was a devout Lutheran whose explicit Christian beliefs shaped his philosophy of science. Joseph Dauben has traced the effect Cantor's Christian convictions had on the development of transfinite set theory.
Debate among mathematicians grew out of opposing views in the philosophy of mathematics regarding the nature of actual infinity. Some held to the view that infinity was an abstraction which was not mathematically legitimate, and denied its existence. Mathematicians from three major schools of thought (constructivism and its two offshoots, intuitionism and finitism) opposed Cantor's theories in this matter. For constructivists such as Kronecker, this rejection of actual infinity stems from fundamental disagreement with the idea that nonconstructive proofs such as Cantor's diagonal argument are sufficient proof that something exists, holding instead that constructive proofs are required. Intuitionism also rejects the idea that actual infinity is an expression of any sort of reality, but arrive at the decision via a different route than constructivism. Firstly, Cantor's argument rests on logic to prove the existence of transfinite numbers as an actual mathematical entity, whereas intuitionists hold that mathematical entities cannot be reduced to logical propositions, originating instead in the intuitions of the mind. Secondly, the notion of infinity as an expression of reality is itself disallowed in intuitionism, since the human mind cannot intuitively construct an infinite set. Mathematicians such as L. E. J. Brouwer and especially Henri Poincaré adopted an intuitionist stance against Cantor's work. Finally, Wittgenstein's attacks were finitist: he believed that Cantor's diagonal argument conflated the intension of a set of cardinal or real numbers with its extension, thus conflating the concept of rules for generating a set with an actual set.
Some Christian theologians saw Cantor's work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God. In particular, neo-Thomist thinkers saw the existence of an actual infinity that consisted of something other than God as jeopardizing "God's exclusive claim to supreme infinity". Cantor strongly believed that this view was a misinterpretation of infinity, and was convinced that set theory could help correct this mistake: "... the transfinite species are just as much at the disposal of the intentions of the Creator and His absolute boundless will as are the finite numbers.". It is to note that prominent neo-scholastic german philosopher Constantin Gutberlet was in favor of such theory, holding that it didn't oppose the nature of God.
Cantor also believed that his theory of transfinite numbers ran counter to both materialism and determinism – and was shocked when he realized that he was the only faculty member at Halle who did not hold to deterministic philosophical beliefs.
It was important to Cantor that his philosophy provided an "organic explanation" of nature, and in his 1883 Grundlagen, he said that such an explanation could only come about by drawing on the resources of the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz. In making these claims, Cantor may have been influenced by FA Trendelenburg, whose lecture courses he attended at Berlin, and in turn Cantor produced a Latin commentary on Book 1 of Spinoza's Ethica. FA Trendelenburg was also the examiner of Cantor's Habilitationsschrift.
In 1888, Cantor published his correspondence with several philosophers on the philosophical implications of his set theory. In an extensive attempt to persuade other Christian thinkers and authorities to adopt his views, Cantor had corresponded with Christian philosophers such as Tilman Pesch and Joseph Hontheim, as well as theologians such as Cardinal Johann Baptist Franzelin, who once replied by equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Although later this Cardinal accepted the theory as valid, due to some clarifications from Cantor's. Cantor even sent one letter directly to Pope Leo XIII himself, and addressed several pamphlets to him.
Cantor's philosophy on the nature of numbers led him to affirm a belief in the freedom of mathematics to posit and prove concepts apart from the realm of physical phenomena, as expressions within an internal reality. The only restrictions on this metaphysical system are that all mathematical concepts must be devoid of internal contradiction, and that they follow from existing definitions, axioms, and theorems. This belief is summarized in his assertion that "the essence of mathematics is its freedom." These ideas parallel those of Edmund Husserl, whom Cantor had met in Halle.
Meanwhile, Cantor himself was fiercely opposed to infinitesimals, describing them as both an "abomination" and "the cholera bacillus of mathematics".
Cantor's 1883 paper reveals that he was well aware of the opposition his ideas were encountering: "... I realize that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers."
Hence he devotes much space to justifying his earlier work, asserting that mathematical concepts may be freely introduced as long as they are free of contradiction and defined in terms of previously accepted concepts. He also cites Aristotle, René Descartes, George Berkeley, Gottfried Leibniz, and Bernard Bolzano on infinity. Instead, he always strongly rejected Kant's philosophy, in the realms of both the philosophy of mathematics and metaphysics. He shared B. Russell's motto "Kant or Cantor", and defined Kant "yonder sophistical Philistine who knew so little mathematics."
Cantor's ancestry
Cantor's paternal grandparents were from Copenhagen and fled to Russia from the disruption of the Napoleonic Wars. There is very little direct information on them. Cantor's father, Georg Waldemar Cantor, was educated in the Lutheran mission in Saint Petersburg, and his correspondence with his son shows both of them as devout Lutherans. Very little is known for sure about Georg Waldemar's origin or education. Cantor's mother, Maria Anna Böhm, was an Austro-Hungarian born in Saint Petersburg and baptized Roman Catholic; she converted to Protestantism upon marriage. However, there is a letter from Cantor's brother Louis to their mother, stating:
("Even if we were descended from Jews ten times over, and even though I may be, in principle, completely in favour of equal rights for Hebrews, in social life I prefer Christians...") which could be read to imply that she was of Jewish ancestry.
According to biographers Eric Temple Bell, Cantor was of Jewish descent, although both parents were baptized. In a 1971 article entitled "Towards a Biography of Georg Cantor", the British historian of mathematics Ivor Grattan-Guinness mentions (Annals of Science 27, pp. 345–391, 1971) that he was unable to find evidence of Jewish ancestry. (He also states that Cantor's wife, Vally Guttmann, was Jewish).
In a letter written to Paul Tannery in 1896 (Paul Tannery, Memoires Scientifique 13 Correspondence, Gauthier-Villars, Paris, 1934, p. 306), Cantor states that his paternal grandparents were members of the Sephardic Jewish community of Copenhagen. Specifically, Cantor states in describing his father: "Er ist aber in Kopenhagen geboren, von israelitischen Eltern, die der dortigen portugisischen Judengemeinde...." ("He was born in Copenhagen of Jewish (lit: 'Israelite') parents from the local Portuguese-Jewish community.")
In addition, Cantor's maternal great uncle, a Hungarian violinist Josef Böhm, has been described as Jewish, which may imply that Cantor's mother was at least partly descended from the Hungarian Jewish community.
In a letter to Bertrand Russell, Cantor described his ancestry and self-perception as follows:
There were documented statements, during the 1930s, that called this Jewish ancestry into question:
Biographies
Until the 1970s, the chief academic publications on Cantor were two short monographs by Arthur Moritz Schönflies (1927) – largely the correspondence with Mittag-Leffler – and Fraenkel (1930). Both were at second and third hand; neither had much on his personal life. The gap was largely filled by Eric Temple Bell's Men of Mathematics (1937), which one of Cantor's modern biographers describes as "perhaps the most widely read modern book on the history of mathematics"; and as "one of the worst". Bell presents Cantor's relationship with his father as Oedipal, Cantor's differences with Kronecker as a quarrel between two Jews, and Cantor's madness as Romantic despair over his failure to win acceptance for his mathematics. Grattan-Guinness (1971) found that none of these claims were true, but they may be found in many books of the intervening period, owing to the absence of any other narrative. There are other legends, independent of Bell – including one that labels Cantor's father a foundling, shipped to Saint Petersburg by unknown parents. A critique of Bell's book is contained in Joseph Dauben's biography. Writes Dauben:
See also
Absolute Infinite
Aleph number
Cardinality of the continuum
Cantor algebra
Cantor cube
Cantor distribution
Cantor function
Cantor medal – award by the Deutsche Mathematiker-Vereinigung in honor of Georg Cantor
Cantor normal form theorem
Cantor space
Cantor tree surface
Cantor's back-and-forth method
Cantor's diagonal argument
Cantor's intersection theorem
Cantor's isomorphism theorem
Cantor's first set theory article
Cantor's paradox
Cantor's theorem
Cantor's leaky tent
Cantor–Bendixson theorem
Cantor–Dedekind axiom
Cantor–Schröder–Bernstein
Cantor–Bernstein theorem
Cantor set
Cardinal number
Continuum hypothesis
Countable set
Derived set (mathematics)
Epsilon numbers (mathematics)
Factorial number system
Heine–Cantor theorem
Pairing function
Smith–Volterra–Cantor set
Transfinite number
Notes
References
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Internet version published in Journal of the ACMS 2004. Note, though, that Cantor's Latin quotation described in this article as a familiar passage from the Bible is actually from the works of Seneca and has no implication of divine revelation.
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. Although the presentation is axiomatic rather than naive, Suppes proves and discusses many of Cantor's results, which demonstrates Cantor's continued importance for the edifice of foundational mathematics.
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Bibliography
Older sources on Cantor's life should be treated with caution. See section § Biographies above.
Primary literature in English
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Primary literature in German
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Published separately as: Grundlagen einer allgemeinen Mannigfaltigkeitslehre.
. Almost everything that Cantor wrote. Includes excerpts of his correspondence with Dedekind (p. 443–451) and Fraenkel's Cantor biography (p. 452–483) in the appendix.
Secondary literature
. . A popular treatment of infinity, in which Cantor is frequently mentioned.
. Contains a detailed treatment of both Cantor's and Dedekind's contributions to set theory.
.
. Three chapters and 18 index entries on Cantor.
Newstead, Anne (2009). "Cantor on Infinity in Nature, Number, and the Divine Mind", American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 83 (4): 532–553, https://doi.org/10.5840/acpq200983444. With acknowledgement of Dauben's pioneering historical work, this article further discusses Cantor's relation to the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz in depth, and his engagement in the Pantheismusstreit. Brief mention is made of Cantor's learning from F.A.Trendelenburg.
. Chapter 16 illustrates how Cantorian thinking intrigues a leading contemporary theoretical physicist.
. Deals with similar topics to Aczel, but in more depth.
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Leonida Lazzari, L'infinito di Cantor. Editrice Pitagora, Bologna, 2008.
External links
Mainly devoted to Cantor's accomplishment.
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Set theory by Thomas Jech. The Early Development of Set Theory by José Ferreirós.
"Cantor infinities", analysis of Cantor's 1874 article, BibNum (for English version, click 'à télécharger'). There is an error in this analysis. It states Cantor's Theorem 1 correctly: Algebraic numbers can be counted. However, it states his Theorem 2 incorrectly: Real numbers cannot be counted. It then says: "Cantor notes that, taken together, Theorems 1 and 2 allow for the redemonstration of the existence of non-algebraic real numbers …" This existence demonstration is non-constructive. Theorem 2 stated correctly is: Given a sequence of real numbers, one can determine a real number that is not in the sequence. Taken together, Theorem 1 and this Theorem 2 produce a non-algebraic number. Cantor also used Theorem 2 to prove that the real numbers cannot be counted. See Cantor's first set theory article or Georg Cantor and Transcendental Numbers.
People from Saint Petersburg
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Set theorists
19th-century German writers
19th-century German male writers
20th-century German writers
19th-century German mathematicians
20th-century German mathematicians
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Technische Universität Darmstadt alumni | false | [
"Crelle's Journal, or just Crelle, is the common name for a mathematics journal, the Journal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik (in English: Journal for Pure and Applied Mathematics).\n\nHistory \nThe journal was founded by August Leopold Crelle (Berlin) in 1826 and edited by him until his death in 1855. It was one of the first major mathematical journals that was not a proceedings of an academy. It has published many notable papers, including works of Niels Henrik Abel, Georg Cantor, Gotthold Eisenstein, Carl Friedrich Gauss and Otto Hesse. It was edited by Carl Wilhelm Borchardt from 1856–80, during which time it was known as Borchardt's Journal. The current editor-in-chief is Rainer Weissauer (Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg)\n\nPast editors \n \n 1826–1856 August Leopold Crelle\n 1856–1880 Carl Wilhelm Borchardt\n 1881–1888 Leopold Kronecker, Karl Weierstrass\n 1889–1892 Leopold Kronecker\n 1892–1902 Lazarus Fuchs\n 1903–1928 Kurt Hensel\n 1929–1933 Kurt Hensel, Helmut Hasse, Ludwig Schlesinger\n 1934–1936 Kurt Hensel, Helmut Hasse\n 1937–1952 Helmut Hasse\n 1952–1977 Helmut Hasse, Hans Rohrbach\n 1977–1980 Helmut Hasse\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n Journal archive at the Göttinger Digitalisierungszentrum\n Journal index at The European Digital Mathematics Library\n\nMultilingual journals\nMathematics journals\nPublications established in 1826\nMonthly journals\nDe Gruyter academic journals\n1826 establishments in Prussia",
"Crelle may refer to\nAugust Leopold Crelle, a German mathematician\nJournal für die reine und angewandte Mathematik, a journal of mathematics commonly known as Crelle's Journal after its founder August Leopold Crelle"
] |
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